


Telling Secrets

by LindaO



Series: Chaos AU [9]
Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Big Bang Challenge, Canon-Typical Violence, Case Fic, F/M, Gen, Reference to child pornography, Season 2 before Zero Day, some strong language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-15
Updated: 2013-09-15
Packaged: 2017-12-26 16:31:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 64,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/968137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LindaO/pseuds/LindaO
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Secrets are dangerous things. Some should never be told. And some should never be kept. The new Number is a detective from Toledo, Ohio who’s learned a devastating family secret. He’s come to New York to find his only living relative – and possibly, to kill him. But he’s not the only who’s surrounded by secrets. As Finch’s carefully separated secretive lives begin to converge, the secrets that are uncovered could end his most cherished relationships.</p>
<p>Beautiful cover banner by SevenCorvus here: http://s181.photobucket.com/user/LindaOpictures/media/CoverArtforlindao3.png.html?filters[user]=48936447&filters[recent]=1&sort=1&o=1</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The nursing home administrator assured him that his mother had died peacefully in her sleep. Red Geis – his real name was Eric, but everyone called him Red, because of his hair -- listened with a cop’s ear. He heard the lie in her voice, the nervous undertone that pleaded ‘don’t-sue-us-don’t-sue-us-please-don’t-sue-us’. He shrugged. It didn’t matter. His mother had been a heavy smoker and drinker his whole life. She’d barely survived a stroke years earlier. In the past year she’d broken her hip, gotten pneumonia, then recovered just in time to catch the flu. He was honestly surprised she’d lasted as long as she had. So if the nursing home hadn’t checked on her in the night, in time to call him to her bedside at the last minute, well, there wasn’t anything to be done about it.

He’d visited his mother faithfully, three times a week, every week, for six years.

He nodded to the administrator. “I understand,” he said honestly.

She nodded back, relieved, and left him alone.

Red continued slowly packing his mother’s things. There wasn’t much. A few nightgowns, some toiletries, an old Bible that he doubted she’d ever read. A brand-new rosary, still in the box; some visiting nun and brought it to her. There were a couple framed pictures of him. One showed him in his uniform the day he’d graduated from the academy. He’d had a lot more hair then, all of it shocking red. These days it was down to just a ring around the sides and back, with a chrome dome up above. His mother had teased him that always wearing a hat had deprived his hair of sunshine and that’s why it had fallen out. There was another picture of him and his partner, both in dress uniforms, at his partner’s wedding. And a third of Eric as a small boy, six years old, standing beside his mother on the porch of a house in New York. She had her arm around his shoulder. Her smile seemed forced. Her smiles had always seemed forced.

Geis looked at the picture a while longer. They looked like a happy pair, him and his mother. If you didn’t know what to look for, he thought, you might believe that was true. But he’d been a cop too long to be fooled. It wasn’t just his mother’s smile. It was her posture, the way she leaned her hip away from the boy. He’d wanted to think she didn’t know. But she’d known. She’d known all along.

He slid the frame apart and removed the picture carefully. He put it into his pocket, then put the frame itself into the little duffle bag with her other things.

Red looked around the little room. Through the window he could see the little back garden, still bare because spring hadn’t quite taken hold, and then the river. It was a nice view. The room was clean, quiet. It had been the best he could afford. They had taken good care of her.

He zipped the bag closed and slung it over his shoulder.

In the hallway, a large family had gathered outside another room. They were all ages, from a babe in arms to several elderly women. There was a great deal of crying and prayer, and occasional wails of despair. They moved in and out of the room in waves.

The administrator left them and came to his side. She exhaled loudly, not quite a sigh.

“Someone else dying?” Geis guessed.

“Yes.” 

“Funny. I been coming here for six years and I’ve never seen a single visitor in that room.”

The administrator did sigh then. “Yes,” she said again.

Geis put his hand on her shoulder briefly. “Thank you for taking care of my mother. You and your staff did a good job.”

She smiled at him briefly. She was about his age, not an unattractive woman, and she’d been divorced for three years. You learned things, when you visited regularly and listened to the chatter. On other circumstances, Geis thought, he might have asked her out. Now that his mother was dead, there was no conflict of interest.

But now that his mother was dead, he had other things to do.

“Thank you,” she said sincerely. “We’re going to miss you around here.”

He’d helped them out a few times, with unruly family members and once with a man stalking one of the young aides. It was surprising how much cooperation a badge flash could invoke in a place like this. “Take care,” he said.

He shifted the little duffle bag higher on his shoulder and walked out.

He’d parked around the side of the building, by the trash bin. When he got there, he simply threw the whole bag away.

There was nothing left of his mother that he needed to keep.

x  x  x  x  x

John Reese settled on an old barstool at the old bar. Zubec brought a cup of coffee for him and a bowl of water for Bear. They exchanged casual greetings. “She’ll be right down,” the big barista said. He wasn’t much of a talker.

Christine Fitzgerald came down a minute later, gave him a kiss on the cheek and ruffled Bear’s fur. “Kinda cold to be out walking,” she said.

Reese shrugged. “We were bored. Harold was annoyed. And it’s not raining or snowing or whatever it’s trying to do yet.”

“I have something for you.”

“So you said.”

Christine took his hand and dropped a thumb drive into it. On one side, in black marker, was printed, ‘N. Donnelly’. John sighed heavily. “What is it?”

“His files. His real files.”

The little thing felt like a burning shard in his hand. “Where’d you get it?”

“Theresa Ramos found it stuffed down in the arm of her couch. She thought he dropped it there accidently.”

Theresa, Reese remembered, was the librarian Christine had sent Donnelly on a blind date with. The couple had hit it off, apparently, before Donnelly died: Theresa had braved Donnelly’s ex-wife to help clean out his apartment. “You don’t believe that.”

“There’s a summary file. Naturally.”

“Naturally.”

“It was encrypted. I’m sure Theresa didn’t read it. Ellis thought that someone inside the government was subverting his investigation. He had a list of events that led him to believe that. He had also been approached by his superiors, counseled. They thought he was becoming obsessive and paranoid.”

“Donnelly, obsessive. Who’d have thought it?” John said as lightly as he could. “So he kept a second set of files.”

“His official files at the office, with all his real evidence, interviews, reports. Those are all copied on there. But he also kept an additional set, notes on theories, speculation, suspicions.”

“And he left them in his girlfriend’s couch. So even if they searched his apartment and his vehicle they couldn’t find them.”

Christine nodded. “I didn’t see a copy in his apartment when we packed it up. But I wasn’t looking, either. It might have been hidden. I didn’t tear the couch apart.”

“It probably would have surfaced before now. And Donnelly was too careful – too paranoid – to keep more than one copy.”

“Hopefully. Because he has a really accurate profile of you in there.”

“I’m sure that makes interesting reading.” He turned it over in his hand. It was unremarkable. On the outside.

She shrugged. “I told Theresa I’d get it to the proper person.”

“And you decided that was me?” John gave her a small smile.

“I think so.”

“Thank you.” He dropped it into his coat pocket. “I am sorry.”

“Not your fault, sweetie.”

Reese shrugged. Christine didn’t blame him for Donnelly’s death. But if he hadn’t been obsessively chasing the Man in the suit, the FBI agent would still have been alive.

“John.”

He sipped his coffee. “So how’s the new apartment coming?”

Christine sighed. “Not your most graceful conversational pivot, but I suppose I’ll allow it.”

“You are very kind.”

x  x  x  x  x

Harold Finch worked on the Decima virus steadily, but not exclusively. On the screen to his left, he was following an unrelated, and utterly personal, electronic trail.

There was no new number at the moment. Reese had been puttering around the library all day. He’d cleaned weapons, moved weapons, adjusted weapons. He’d played catch with Bear until Finch sent them outside. They were gone for over an hour and came back damp from the freezing rain. John had toweled off his own hair and dried the dog. Then, finally, he’d snagged a book off the desk – Dickens _’ Our Mutual Friend_ – sprawled on the couch with it, and had promptly, predictably, fallen asleep.

Finch didn’t have the slightest illusion that he could leave his desk without his partner becoming fully alert, but it didn’t matter. He could do everything from his keyboard, and that sound was so engrained in Reese’s consciousness now that it would not wake him.

Bear stretched out on the floor beside the couch. There was, for a change, no sign of the cat.

In the morning, Harold had sent an email from the Sutton Gallery to the Visual Artists of New York City Club. The gallery was hosting a show featuring four photographers the next afternoon. An anonymous benefactor had donated three $500 gift cards to the neighboring art supply store to be raffled off at the show. To enter, guests simply needed to attend and place an entry form in the fish bowl by the door. There would also be refreshments.

At noon, the president of the club had forwarded the e-mail to the members, with her own note encouraging them to attend if possible. She had, Harold knew, been trying to place her own pieces with Sutton for some time and saw a good showing from her club as an incentive to the owner.

An hour after that, Harold sent a text from one of the members, who was conveniently out of town, to Melissa Keynes, suggesting that she get in touch with Grace and invite her. _Hear they have open bar_ , the text added.

Five minutes later, Melissa Keynes forwarded the president’s e-mail to Grace Hendricks with the note, _You’ll go with me, right?_

There was no immediate response from Grace; she was out painting, wisely working on a series of interiors for the winter, and not checking her e-mail at the moment. But Harold knew her well enough to know that she’d be interested. And he knew Melissa well enough to know that she’d insist. The other woman would never pass up an open bar.

He smiled tightly to himself. Phase One complete. He’d watch it, nudge as necessary, but that part of the plan should take care of itself. Nothing left to do until the next day.

As he clicked off the screen, he caught a glimpse of his own reflection. His face was simply expressionless. Not happy, not sad. Not doubtful. He’d decided. It was time. Past time, if he was honest.

It was his third attempt. The first two had failed, fluttering gently into nothingness. He had more confidence about this one. And the third time was supposed to be the charm.

“I know that look, Harold,” Reese said very quietly.

Finch turned his upper body to look over at him. The ex-op was still sprawled on the couch. He hadn’t moved at all, except to open his eyes. And from that distance he surely couldn’t read what had been on the screen, even if his angle had been better. “What look?”

“The one that says you’re up to something.”

“When am I not up to something, Mr. Reese?”

Reese sat up and swung his feet to the floor. “The look that says you’re up to something you know I won’t like.”

“What I’m up to,” Harold replied carefully, “doesn’t concern or involve you.”

“Can I see what it is, then?”

“Of course not.”

John looked away for a moment, then back at him. “Is it Root?”

“If it were Root, that would concern you, would it not?”

“It would concern me very much.”

“I told you I wouldn’t lie to you, Mr. Reese. I also told you that I’m a really private person.”

Reese ran his hand over his face. “Does it put you in danger in any way?” he finally asked.

“No,” Harold answered immediately. “Nor you, nor our endeavors. It is a personal matter.”

The op’s face went expressionless, a mirror of Harold’s in the monitor reflection. In that flatness Finch read his reply: John didn’t like it, but he would respect his wishes. For the moment.

The somber moment was unexpectedly brief. There was a small scrambling sound from the stairs, a single ‘meow’ and then quick light feet ran toward them. Bear jumped up and headed down the hall. Smokey ran past him. The dog cornered clumsily, skittering on the hardwood floor and chased her.

The cat, Finch realized as she raced under his desk, was chasing something _else._

With some effort he lifted both feet off the floor. By that time the mouse had sped out and turned again, ran at Reese and darted under the couch. Smokey pursued it easily. Bear, being much bigger, had to go around. But his delay proved advantageous: When the mouse reversed course again, it ran right into the dog’s jaws.

Bear snapped his mouth shut and froze. Smokey stopped and looked at him. Then she stretched elegantly, unconcerned, and sauntered off.

The dog looked at Reese. His mouth was still closed. His eyes seemed to be surprised and imploring.

Reese sat up, took out his handkerchief and covered his hand. He patted his leg and the dog came to him. “ _Los_ ,” he said.

The dog seemed relieved to drop the mouse into his hand.

John examined it quickly, then wrapped it in the handkerchief. “Well. She is doing her job.”

“I wonder if she couldn’t do it a little less dramatically,” Finch answered.

As if he’d invited her, Smokey jumped onto his desk, strolled elegantly across the keyboard, and climbed into her shoe box for a nap.

                                                           x  x  x  x  x 

As the sun went down, the rain began to turn to ice on the road. Will Ingram slowed his car down. Other cars around him slowed down, too. He was tired and hungry, and he’d pulled a muscle in his right shoulder helping to transfer a patient. But it had been a good day.

Beside him, Julie Carson hung up her cell phone and put it away. “Okay, Bucko. We’re on for the weekend.”

He smiled encouragingly. “It’ll be fine, Jules.”

“You don’t know them, Will.”

“That’s the point of us going, so I get to know them.”

She put her head against the side window of the car.  

“You worry too much,” he assured her. “Your family will be fine. It went okay with my mother, didn’t it?”

Julie nodded. “I know. But she’s sane. My mother’s not.”

Will reached across the seat and touched her hand. Julie’s introduction to his mother had gone much better than he’d hoped. Julie was a natural diplomat, great at making easy but not trivial conversation. Olivia had, he knew, been relieved that the young woman didn’t have facial piercings or visible tattoos. But after those first polite minutes, they’d genuinely seemed to hit it off.

On the second day of their visit, the women had gone jogging together. Olivia was just starting, with a new-found interest in fitness. Julie was just re-starting after breaking her leg (and many other bones) the year before. They’d only been gone an hour, and most of that time, Will gathered, had been dedicated to stretching and walking. But it was something that they’d bonded over, something that they had in common besides him. They’d talked on the phone a dozen times since then, comparing notes and tips as they continued to train separately.

When he’d taken his mother aside just before they left her house for a very important, very quiet conversation, she’d been more than happy with what he’d told her.

Will grinned to himself. He’d been a lot more worried about Olivia than he was about Julie’s family. “I’ll be charming,” he promised. “They won’t be able to resist me.”

Julie looked over at him. “I’m not worried about them liking _you_. Believe me, you’ll be more than acceptable to my parents.”

Because, Will knew, he was wealthy, and according to Julie that was all that would really matter to them. He shrugged. “Then what’s the problem?”

“I’m just afraid you’ll …” She stopped, squeezed his hand. “Never mind.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Jules, what? You’re afraid I’ll take one look at them and run for the hills?”

“You would if you were smart.”

He chuckled. “Maybe so. But if I do, I’ll make sure you’re right beside me, okay?”

“Oh.” She smiled a little, relieved. “Well, okay, then.”

“It’ll be -- shit!”

Brakes lights flashed and tires squealed. Will grabbed the steering wheel with both hands, then turned sharply at the same time he mashed his foot down on the brakes. The car shuddered hard, chattering as the anti-lock brakes pulsed. The car turned sideways across the lanes and slid toward the stopped cars ahead of them.

Will heard crunching sounds, but didn’t feel any contact. To his right he saw red lights move upward and then vanish. It took his brain a second to interpret that it was the back of a car flipping over its own hood. His own car came to a stop. To his left there were headlights and he braced himself, but that car managed to stop, too.

“You okay?” he asked Julie.

“Yeah. You?”

“Uh-huh.” He opened his door and got out. “Stay here.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Call 9-1-1 first.”

“On it.”

The ground was slick under his feet. Ingram smelled gasoline. Someone’s car alarm was clamoring. He glanced over his shoulder. The other cars on the freeway seemed to be stopping without further collisions. He moved toward the flipped car.

A woman screamed, “My baby!”

He dropped onto the pavement beside the car to look through the driver’s side window. There was a young woman crumpled against the roof of the car. She was covered with white powder; the deflated air bag sagged from the steering wheel. She was still tangled in her shoulder belt. Will reached in far enough to hit the buckle and release her. “Be still,” he said. “It’s okay, you’re okay.”

“My baby!” the woman shrieked.

Will squirmed further under car. There was no doubt in his mind that the woman’s arm was broken. And also, once he got a clear view, that she was very, very pregnant. “Try to stay calm,” he said. “We’re going to get you out of here.”

“My baby!” The woman tried to twist around.

He felt a hand on his back and knew immediately that it was Julie. “There’s a toddler in the back seat,” she said.

“We’ll get your baby,” he told the driver. “Be still if you can, okay? I’ll be right here, and there’s more help coming. Just stay still.” He scooted out of the car and looked into the back seat with Julie.

The toddler was still buckled in her car seat, held upside down from the back seat. Her eyes were open, but she was silent, staring fixedly straight ahead. Will couldn’t see any bleeding, no open wounds. Her face was very red. The roof of the car had crumpled so that the child’s head was only an inch from the roof.

He stretched, but he couldn’t get to the seatbelt that secured the car seat.

There was no way in hell the back doors were going to open.

It was still raining. The smell of gasoline grew stronger every moment. He heard more squealing tires as oncoming traffic caught up with the crash. No sirens yet.

_Damn it._

Two big guys in black overcoats stood close by. “Dr. Ingram …” one of them began.

“Not now, Thomas,” he snapped. “How many other injuries?”

“Six cars,” the bodyguard answered immediately. “Not sure how many vics.”

“Go check. Let me know what’s critical.”

The bodyguards looked at him. Then they exchanged a look. Thomas – Will wasn’t certain if that was his first name or his last – moved off to check the other vehicles. Tonaro – definitely his last name – moved off just a little and stood watch.

Will shook his head. There was no point in arguing. For himself, he could have tried. But Julie was there, too. Julie was …

He turned. Julie was on her back, squirming through the back window of the car, trying to get to the toddler.

“Jules, get out of there,” he said. “You can’t …”

“I’m smaller than you. I can reach her.”

She was already in up to her waist.

“Jules …”

“I can’t … damn it. Will, knife!”

“Hang on, I’ll get my bag.”

“On my ankle.”

“What?”

“On my ankle. There’s a knife on my ankle.”

Will twisted and pushed up her jeans leg. There was a small knife in a sheath strapped to her lower calf. “What the hell, Jules.”

“Just give it.”

He slipped back under the car far enough to hand it to her. “Don’t drop her on her head.”

“Gee, thanks, Doc.”

“My baby!” the woman in the front seat wailed again.

Will scooted around to her again. “We’re getting her. What’s her name?”

“Bella.”

He managed not to groan out loud. “We’re getting Bella out right now. We’ll take care of her, I promise. And you, too. When’s your baby due?”

“Five weeks from tomorrow.”

“Good.” He took her hand, careful not to move it, and checked her pulse. It was fast, but steady. And finally, finally there were sirens. “Jules?”

“Got her!” she announced. And then, “Oh, shit.”

“Julie …”

“There’s glass everywhere. I need a blanket or something.”

Will backed out of the front seat, took off his coat, and slid it to her. “Watch her head,” he said again.

“Uh-huh.”

Belatedly, Will realized that the liquid on the pavement he was sitting in – that was soaking through his clothes, Julie’s clothes, everybody’s clothes – was not rain. At least not entirely. They were all soaked in gas. “Shit,” he murmured. “Tonaro!” he shouted.

The bodyguard moved closer. “Right here.”

“There’s gas everywhere,” Will said. “No flares, okay? No cigarettes.”

“Could be a problem.” The man gestured toward the other cars.

He saw flickering orange light.

“Oh, fuck,” Ingram said. “Jules!”

“Take her,” she called.

He grabbed the ends of his coat and pulled it toward him. The toddler was on her back in the center of it. She was still motionless. He bent over her as Julie scrambled out. “Bella? Bella?”

The girl’s eyes rolled toward him. She took a deep breath. And then she screamed.

“My baby,” the mother sobbed.

“She’s okay,” Will called back. She was, apparently. With the scream, she’d begun to kick and to move her arms. She was terrified, but she had full range of motion. That was huge.

The first rule of emergency medicine was carved in stone: Don’t move ‘em unless you’ll lose ‘em. Under normal circumstances, he would have waited for a backboard and collar for mother and child both. But in a pool of gasoline, with open fire less than twenty yards away, he couldn’t wait. He swept the toddler up in his arms and held her out to his bodyguard. “Take her,” he barked.

To his credit, the big man barely hesitated. He’d probably already done the calculation, that being in the pool of gas was a bigger threat to his clients than the risk of a random assassin. And that they weren’t leaving the area without the victims. He took the screaming child. For a moment he held her at arm’s length as if she were an explosive device. Then he shook himself and pulled her in close.

From the expression on his face, he might have been happier if she actually _were_ an explosive device.

Will moved his coat over to the front door. “Ma’am? What’s your name?”

“Louisa.”

“Louisa. We’re going to get you out of the car now. Your arm is broken and it’s going to hurt. If you hurt anywhere else, let me know right away, okay?”

“My baby …”

“She’s over there,” Julie said. She didn’t bother to point; the woman couldn’t see her. “She’s safe. You hear her screaming? That means she’s okay. Nice and strong and mad as hell. Right?”

“Uh-huh.”

They maneuvered her onto the coat as gently as they could. Louisa gasped when they had to move her arm, but when they paused she was able to tell them that she didn’t hurt anywhere else.

There were flashing lights, other voices. Finally.

Will backed away from the wreck, checked on Julie’s position. Then they slid the coat and the woman out from under the car.

“Hey!” a voice of authority barked. “You can’t move her …”

Tonaro stepped closer, still with the screaming toddler in his arms, and spoke quietly. The man, a police officer in uniform, came over to them and spoke in an entirely different tone. “How can I help?”

“There’s gas everywhere,” Julie said. “No flares.”

“Got it.” He got on his radio.

They dragged the woman a good ten feet from the car before they stopped, but with the wet pavement it was impossible to tell where the contamination ended. They were all soaked in gas anyhow. “First squad needs to take her,” Will said to the officer. “She’s thirty-five weeks gestation.” He pointed. “That’s my car. Get my bag out of the trunk, will you?”

The cop turned and hurried to the car.

Julie went and took the toddler from the relieved bodyguard. Bella began to quiet down. Tonaro resumed his watchful pose.

Thomas returned while Will was assessing the woman. “Eight vics,” he said efficiently. “Looks like one leg broke and one other arm. The rest are bumps and bruises, except one. No seat belt, no air bag.”

Will glanced up. “Steering wheel or windshield?”

“Steering wheel to the face.” He gestured to his own face. “Nose, mostly.”

“Arms and legs?”

“Huh?”

Ingram stood up, gestured the cop over. He took his bag, pointed to Louisa. “Stay with her until the squad gets here. Hold her hand. Keep her talking.”

“Okay.”

“Show me,” Will said to Thomas. The bodyguard led him past other wrecked cars to the first one in the pile-up, a red sedan that looked like it had been battered before it went into the overpass piling. The front end of the car was crumpled all the way to the windshield.

The driver was standing beside the car, leaning against the wreckage. His face below his nose was covered with blood; his nose was obviously broken. “Hey,” Will said, putting a hand on the man’s shoulder, “you need to sit down and let me check you out, okay?”

The man turned and squinted at him. Ingram immediately thought ‘head injury’ and tightened his grip on his arm. Then he smelled his breath. “Are you drunk?” he demanded.

“I, uh, I gotta go.” The man tried to walk away. He staggered badly and nearly fell.

Will eased him down onto the pavement. He crouched in front of him. He might still have a head injury. There was no way to tell for sure, here on the scene. And honestly, Will had a hard time caring. Bella and her mother and her unborn sibling were all at risk, Julie was at risk, and this idiot …

He bit back his rage and flashed his penlight into the man’s eyes. The man closed them tightly and turned away. “Let me see,” Will said. The man shook his head.

Ingram checked his pulse. It was stronger and more even than Louisa’s had been.

There were suddenly a _lot_ of people there, cops and fireman and paramedics. Someone put a hand on his shoulder. “Hey, you the doctor?”

“Yeah,” he said. “This guy’s nose is broke. He won’t let me get vitals. And you need to get a blood alcohol.”

The paramedic scowled. “Figures.”

“Yeah.” Will stood and walked back to the expectant mother. She had her own pair of paramedics working on her by then. Evidently the cops had relayed Will’s status as a not-bystander. “What’ve you got?” he asked.

“Broken arm and collar bone,” the first one reported. “Vitals are good. Got a fetal heartbeat, and fetal movement, I think.”

“Good.”

“You moved her.”

“Gas,” he answered.

He helped them use his coat to roll her and load her onto a backboard. It was mostly a precaution; she didn’t seem to have any c-spine injuries. But it couldn’t hurt. She grabbed at Will’s hand. “My baby,” she said quietly.

“Your baby’s fine,” he told her. “We’ll check him out when we get to the hospital, but he seems fine.”

Tears welled up in her eyes. “My Bella. Why isn’t she crying anymore?”

“Bella’s right over there. Julie has her. She’ll stay with her. I promise. Until you can be with her again. We’re not going to let anything happen to her. She’s okay.”

“My baby,” the woman said again. She tried to touch her rounded belly, but they already had her arms strapped down.

“Here,” Will said. “You’ve heard the heartbeat in your doctor’s appointments, right?”

“Uh-huh.”

He snagged a stethoscope out of his bag and used it to find the baby’s heartbeat again. “This won’t sound quite the same because it’s different equipment, but you can listen, okay?” He held the sensor in place, awkwardly slipped the earpieces into the mother’s ears. “Can you hear him? Her?”

Louisa blinked back tears again. “Yes,” she said. Then she began to cry in earnest. “Oh, yes.”

He let her listen for a moment more. His eyes scanned up to locate Julie. She wasn’t far away. She was sitting down, holding Bella on her lap while the paramedic checked her out. The toddler had stopped crying. She didn’t look happy, but she wasn’t terrified as long as she had Julie. He’d seen that before. Children of all ages trusted her immediately.

Evidently the car seat had done its job; Bella didn’t seem to be hurt at all.

The adrenaline was starting to wear off. Will was cold; his coat was underneath Louisa on the backboard. He was soaked to the skin, with icy rain and with gasoline. The ER could do better assessments, but it didn’t look like anyone was seriously hurt. They’d been lucky as hell.

The drunk …

He shook his head.

They got people assessed, loaded into ambulances. Julie went with Bella. “I’m her aunt,” she said. The paramedic looked at her sideways – she hadn’t been able to provide even token information about the child – but since Bella clung to her, he nodded and played along. Will rode in with Louisa, though there really wasn’t any need.

They were all the way to the hospital before he thought about Thomas and Tonaro. Or his car. He shrugged. They’d deal with it. They always did.

Now that he was reconciled to having them, he tried not to abuse his bodyguards. But once in a while it just happened. He’d make it up to them, he decided. He had no idea how. Julie would probably have an idea. She was smart like that.

Not smart enough to know that he wasn’t going to be scared off by her family, though. He shook his head. He’d lost Julie Carson once, before he ever knew her real name. He wasn’t letting her go again for anything.  

And it occurred to him that he probably ought to tell her that.

Again.

Tonight.

                                                           x  x  x  x  x 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

Finch’s phone rang as he was locking up the library. Reese paused at the top of the stairs and waited while he answered it.

“Harold Wren.” And then, “When?”

The sudden edge to his voice was enough to draw John back to his side. “Are they hurt?” Finch continued. And then, “Where are they now?”

Reese dropped his hands to his side, rolled his shoulders, wiggled his fingers to loosen them up. He was ready to go, whatever the crisis was.

Harold clicked his phone off. “What?” Reese demanded.

“Will. And Julie. They’ve been in an accident. A car accident.”

“Where?”

“They’re … that was Skydd dispatch, they’re … he didn’t think they were hurt but they’re …” He stopped and took a deliberate breath. “The operatives in place said they weren’t injured. That they were helping with casualties and were headed to the hospital with them.”

“Good.” Reese slammed the gate shut, took the lock from Harold’s hand and secured it. “I’ll drive. What hospital?”

“I … Metro.” Finch shook himself, finally met John’s eyes. “They’re not hurt,” he repeated, to both of them.

“Good. They’ll still need a ride home.”

“Miss Carson …”

Reese took his arm and guided him down the hall. Julie Carson was going to be an issue, yes. Because Julie Carson knew far too much about John Reese, and his appearance at Uncle Harold’s side would require explanation. But he was ready, if it came to that. Julie had been a covert op. She was experienced enough to play along until she got answers. “I’ll stay out of sight if I can.”

At the top of the stairs, Harold hesitated. “John … thank you.”

John shrugged. “It’s no problem, Harold.”

It was rush hour and traffic was horrible. John navigated it as smoothly as he could, sacrificing some speed in favor of not making Finch slam his foot down on the imaginary passenger-side brakes. They were still five minutes from the hospital when Harold’s cell phone rang again. He glanced at the screen, blew out a breath as he answered. “Will!”

Reese could hear a woman’s voice on the other end. “No, he’s not … who is this?” Finch said.

The woman’s voice was very brisk.

“No, I don’t know where he is,” Harold finally managed to shoehorn into her speech. “He should be there. At the hospital.” More chatter. “No, I don’t think he was injured. He’s a doctor …”

He was distracted enough that Reese drove more aggressively without his noticing.

“No, not on staff, he was at the scene, I believe he came in with one of the victims …”

“No, I don’t know where he went after he got there …”

“Yes, yes, I’ll come and pick up his personal items. I’ll be there in a few minutes …”

“No, I don’t …” He looked at John as the car slid to a stop at the Emergency Room entrance. “I’ll be right there,” he said. He snapped the phone off. “They’ve got Will’s phone and wallet.”

“Keep the comm open,” John said. “I’ll park the car and stay close.”

Harold slipped his hand in his pocket, came out with an earpiece and put it in. “The security here will be …”

“Finch.”

“Yes. Of course.” He climbed out of the car and went inside.

                                                           x  x  x  x  x 

Christine Fitzgerald was having a peaceful evening for a change. She’d hung around in the café for a while, but once the after-work surge ended, things had slowed way down. She sat down with some of the gamers for a while. Then she made herself a mocha, carried it upstairs, and fired up her computer.

She had a new client, a big insurance company. She’d met with the chairman the day before. He was absolutely certain she couldn’t crack his network. She’d already found three ways in. She’d also located the access code for the off-shore funds that were the goal of the exercise. She hadn’t moved it yet, simply because she’d learned early on that executives were impressed if she could hack them in five days, but simply annoyed if she proved she could do it in five hours.

This guy, she’d already decided, needed to fire his tech guys. All of them. Soon.

But he was going to need a lot of evidence to be persuaded.

She found two more vulnerabilities and documented them. Then she paused and looked toward the cardboard boxes stacked neatly by the wall. Three of them were Nathan Ingram’s documents. She was taking them out of storage a few at a time and sorting through them for Will.  

The fourth box held copies of some of Nathan’s vast CD collection.

Christine took a disc out at random and put it into one of the towers. It was a bootleg copy of Warren Zevon’s _Excitable Boy_. Nathan, she noted with approval, was eclectic as hell in his music choices. There was everything from classical to metal in his collection. The copies were decent quality. She nodded along to the opening track and went back to work.

She wasn’t sure at first what had caught her attention a while later. She saved her document and went to the sink to rinse out her mug; the mocha was long gone. Then she leaned against the counter and listened to the music.

The first few tracks had sounded good, but the one that was playing, ‘Accidentally Like a Martyr’, had a distinct loss of fidelity. It was subtle. Probably no one who was less of a music junkie would notice it. But she could hear it. There was no reason for it; he’d almost certainly recorded the whole disc at the same time, on the same equipment. From what Will had said, he always copied his CDs when they were brand new. So the quality variation was an aberration.

Aberrations were almost never incidental.

She walked over to the screen, brought the CD menu up on the screen, and selected the first track.

The sound quality improved markedly.

Track two, still good.

Track three, fine.

Track four, ‘Accidentally’, was full of tiny, almost subliminal, distortions.

The next track was ‘Werewolves of London’. It had the same quality as the first tracks.

But it was wrong. She tipped her head, trying to be certain. “Zelda?” she called.

“Yes?” her computer answered in a gentle British tone.

“Show me the cover for this album, Z.” She didn’t have to specify the artist; her computer was more than capable of figuring that out. The play list appeared on the big screen to her left. Christine glanced at it.

“What the hell, Nathan?” she murmured.

“Pardon?” the computer asked.

“Not you,” she said absently. She sat down and hovered over the play list from the CD. The track sizes were all within normal parameters. The burn dates all matched. But it was wrong. ‘Werewolves’ should have been the fourth track.  

‘Martyr’ was out of order, and the sound was degraded.

She picked at it. It was well-hidden, but once she knew it was there, it was simply a matter of pulling data threads until one came loose. She knew, as she uncovered it, that it wasn’t Harold Finch’s code. His lines were simple, minimalistic. Clean. This code was more cluttered, a bit redundant, less elegant. It was still effective.

Beneath the music track there was a file.

Naturally, it was encrypted.

It wasn’t very big. It seemed to be a text document.

She reached for her keyboard, intent on cracking it. Then she paused. She stood up, took another music CD from the box at random, and put it in the computer.

She repeated the process three more times. There was always the same result.

“Damn it, Nathan,” she said. “What the hell were you hiding?”

She reached for her keyboard again. Then she stopped again.

She put the five CD’s back in their cases and stacked them neatly on the edge of the breakfast bar. Then she sat back down and sent Finch an e-mail.

                                                           x  x  x  x  x 

The train rolled into Penn Station four hours late. The other passengers grumbled as they gathered their personal items. Red Geis was quiet, resigned. He wasn’t in any particular hurry.

When the crowd thinned out, he got his carry-on bag and went in search of his checked suitcase. Then he walked to the first cab in the line outside and got in. He gave the cabbie the address of his hotel. He’d made his reservation from home, with his own credit card. He knew it was easy to trace. He didn’t care.

He looked out the window. He’d been born in New York. But nothing here made him feel nostalgic. It was just a city, cold and wet and busy. Not his city. Not any more.

His hotel room was small; the single window had a view of a brick wall two feet away. Geis didn’t care about that, either. He didn’t plan on spending much time there. He opened his suitcase on the dresser and got out clean clothes and a half-used roll of duct tape. Then he opened his carry-on, brought out a heavy plastic-wrapped package and carried it into the bathroom. He lay on the floor and taped the package under the sink, not in the front but in the back, way underneath. Then he took a quick shower. He didn’t really expect anyone to break into his hotel room, but he’d been a cop too long not to be careful.

When he was clean and dry, he went down to the hotel’s business center. It was really just a glorified walk-in closet with two little desks, two old computers, a printer and a phone. Everything was faintly dusty. No one probably ever used this room any more. He shook one of the mice and the monitor came on.

He pulled the keyboard tray out. But before he typed anything in, he considered the phone again. It was big and beige. It sat on top of a telephone book.

“Can’t be,” Geis murmured. But he moved the phone and opened the book.

And there it was. The name, the address, the phone number.

For the first time a little tickle of nostalgia ran through him. He knew that street. He could see it in his mind, the way it had been when he was a kid. The old bastard hadn’t even bothered to move.

He took the little notebook out of his pocket and jotted down the information. He didn’t really need it, but it was habit.

He put the book away and went back to his room. He kicked off his shoes, emptied his pockets, turned out the light and stretched out on the bed, on top of the bedspread. He didn’t plan to sleep. The city was loud; there was bright light coming through the small window.

_He didn’t even bother to move. We left and he moved in, and the bastard never even bothered to move._

Red Geis fell asleep. For the first time in many years, he did not dream, or if he did, his dreams were not horrible enough to wake him.

                                                           x  x  x  x  x    

In every first-world emergency room Will Ingram had ever been in, there were two distinct kinds of medical professionals: The ones who followed the rules, and the ones who got things done.

It was the main reason he’d dropped out of his residency.

When they first arrived with the ambulances, the ER had been swamped. The staff had been more than happy to let him stay with Louisa, to hold her hand, explain the tests procedures, even take her vitals. But in the space of about thirty minutes, once they had assessed all their new patients and sorted out their assignments, the attitude had shifted. By the time the woman’s husband arrived, the staff members were noticeably anxious about his presence.

Will understood that perfectly. He wished Louisa well, said some reassuring words to her husband, and slipped out of the treatment bay. He paused in the corridor, trying to guess where Julie and Bella might have ended up.

A small, tired-looking nurse in scrubs paused. “Help you?”

“I’m looking for a toddler that was brought in with the accident.”

“Bella.”

“Yes.”

She gestured over her shoulder. “Fifteen. But she already has a visitor.”

Will held his hand out. “This tall, blonde, reeks of gasoline?”

“You’re one to talk,” she answered. “Bella’s aunt is with her. We sent Miss Fire Hazard to the shower.”

“Oh.”

“End of the hall, last door on the right. There’re scrubs in the cupboard in there. Help yourself. Just don’t say I said so.”

“Thanks.”

He walked down the hall. The indicated door was labeled ‘Physicians Only’ and it was locked. Will looked around, then knocked lightly. It opened immediately.

Julie had already showered and stolen a set of scrubs. She was adorable. He stepped inside, closed the door, and reached for her.

“No,” she said firmly. “I’m clean.”

“You don’t love me.”

“I love you,” she assured him. “I’ll love you more when you’re less flammable.”

He sighed, but she was right. He peeled off his shirt, then held it, uncertain.

“There,” Julie said, pointing to a red plastic hazard bag on a rack in the corner. “The nurse said to throw them there. Unless you want to try to save them.”

“Uh, no.” He dropped the shirt into the bag, then kicked off his shoes. They were leather and he’d had them forever; they were wonderfully comfortable. He might try to salvage them. But everything else could go. “I wonder where my coat went.”

“I dunno,” Julie answered. “I pitched mine. It was soaked.”

“Yeah.” He frowned as he unbuttoned his jeans. “It has my phone in it. And my wallet.”

“I’ll go ask somebody.”

“No, stay. You owe me a kiss.”

She smiled. “Fine. Go shower.”

He showered quickly, scrubbing thoroughly with the same soap that every hospital in the world seemed to use. Then he dried off and put on some scrubs. There were little hospital slipper socks, but he didn’t want to put his shoes back on. When he left the little shower room, Julie was waiting with a patient belongings bag. He dropped his shoes in, with hers. Then he wrapped his arms around her and kissed her thoroughly.

“You were really good out there,” he said, when they had to come up for air.

“So were you.” She nestled against his shoulder for a minute. “I like working with you like this.”

“Uh-huh.” There was nothing in the world, he thought, quite like holding Julie against his. They fit together, mind and body. He couldn’t imagine being without her. “Will you marry me?”

“Sure,” Julie answered, without looking up.

“I’m serious, Jules.”

She chuckled and leaned back just a little. “So am I.”

“I have a ring. At the loft. It was my mother’s. I was waiting for the right occasion. I was thinking a really nice dinner or …”

“Will. I said yes.”

“You did, didn’t you? But I’ll ask you again, the right way, if you want …”

Julie smiled warmly. “We’re in a hospital, in someone else’s clothes. We’ve risked our lives, we’re frozen and hungry, and we both still kinda smell like gasoline. This is our life, Will. This _is_ the right occasion.”

It was hard to argue with her when she was so logical. He gave up, smiled, and kissed her again.

Julie put her hand under his scrub top, slid it along his bare skin. It seemed like an excellent idea.

And then, of course, someone knocked on the door.

They broke the kiss finally, laughing, and opened the door.

The same woman said, “Do either of you know a Harold Wren?”

                                                           x  x  x  x  x 

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

Joss Carter eased her front door open and went inside quietly. It was past eleven on a school night, and if he had any sense Taylor would be asleep.

She saw the light under his closed bedroom door and sighed. Of course he wasn’t asleep. Then she heard voices and her mouth tightened. He knew the rules. Tia wasn’t supposed to be over after ten, and she wasn’t supposed to be in his bedroom with the door closed ever, whether Joss was home or not.

They were both seventeen. She was reasonably sure —though not entirely certain — that they were sexually active. But he was living under her roof, and he would follow her rules. Which meant that he could sneak around the same as she had at that age.

She’d thought Taylor and Tia had been fighting, anyhow. She hadn’t seen the girl for weeks. Although with teenagers, make-ups and break-ups were practically a daily occurrence. Evidently they were on a make-up swing. That was fine, but her rules still applied.

Carter pushed her jacket back to clear her weapon. She wasn’t threatening them, exactly, but she wanted them both to have a visual reminder of exactly what she did for a living. Then she opened the door without knocking.

Taylor looked up at her from his bed. He was sprawled out, fully dressed except for his bare feet, watching TV.

At his desk sat the boy from down the street, Joey Carmichael. He was a year younger than Taylor. They’d been best friends when they were younger, but they’d grown apart before high school. She hadn’t seen him in probably a year.

She adjusted her jacket back over her weapon. “Hey, boys.”

“Hi, Mom,” Taylor said.

“Joey, I haven’t seen you in forever. How’ve you been?”

“Okay,” he said. He was working at Taylor’s computer, but the screen was turned away from the door. “I um, I just needed to borrow Taylor’s computer for a little bit. I hope that’s okay.”

“It’s fine. But it’s kind of late.”

He flushed. “I … um, yeah. I’ll wrap this up and get out of here.”

“Taylor, you have any homework?”

“All done,” he promised.

“Good.” She nodded. “I’m going to get a late snack. You guys want anything?”

“No, I’m good.”

Joey just shook his head.

Carter left the door open a couple inches and went back to the kitchen. She didn’t really want a snack; she wanted to take a shower and fall into bed. But there was something in the air that prickled at her instinct. She wanted to make sure Joey left, and got home safe.

There was a bit more quiet chatter in the bedroom. Then Joey came out and headed for the door. “Thanks, Miz Carter.”

“Nice to see you again, Joey. Say hi to your mom for you.”

He hesitated. “I will. Thanks.”

He went out. Joss followed him onto the front steps, as she had when he was a boy. He looked back at her, grinned shyly. “I’m sixteen, Miz Carter,” he said carefully.

“And I’m a homicide cop. So go straight home.”

He laughed a little and walked quickly down to his own house. It was only six doors down. She stood on the steps and watched him until he waved and went inside. Then she went inside herself.

Taylor was waiting in the living room. “I know it’s late, Mom. I’m sorry. But he said it was really important.”

Carter nodded. “It’s okay. What was he doing?”

Taylor looked away.

“Taylor. What was he doing on your computer?”

“He asked me not to tell.”

“That’s not going to cut it.”

The boy — the young man — sighed. “He was talking to his dad. On Skype.”

Joss frowned. “His dad’s still posted in Afghanistan?”

“Yeah.” Taylor looked suddenly alarmed. “There’s not like, some long-distance charge or something, is there?”

“No. Not that I know of.” Carter was pretty sure there wasn’t, anyhow. “But how come he doesn’t talk to his dad at his own house?”

“He said their computer was broken.”

“Oh. Well, have him bring it over. I know somebody who can fix it cheap.”

“Scotty. I told him. He said he had to ask him mom.” Taylor sounded unconvinced.

“Taylor, what is it?”

He thought about it, then shook his head. “I don’t know, Mom. I mean, me and Joey were tight, but that was a long time ago. I don’t even remember the last time I saw him, you know, except to say hey on the street or whatever. And then he showed up at the door tonight and asked to use the computer. There’s something weird about it.”

Carter nodded in agreement. “Well, it can’t be easy, his dad being overseas for so long. I’m sure he misses him. And those weekly calls, they’re really important to families. Anything he can do to make sure he doesn’t miss one … even if it means coming over here. I’m sure he appreciated your help.”

“I guess.” He shrugged. “Anyhow, I figured you’d be okay with it.”

“I am,” she assured him. “It’s just good I didn’t catch you with Tia in your room with the door shut.”

Taylor ducked his head.

“Taylor?”

He shifted from foot to foot before he looked at her again. “I don’t think she’s gonna be around much any more.”

“You have a fight?”

“Yeah.” Taylor sighed. And then, “No. Not a fight. We broke up. She met this new guy. He’s a football player.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, baby.” Joss went and put her arms around him. “I know you really liked her.”

“It’s okay, Mom.” He hugged her back, then shrugged away. “It’s just … I don’t think he’s any good for her. But, you know, it’s up to her.”

“You want to talk about it?”

Taylor shook his head. “I’ll keep you posted, but I think we’re over.”

Joss kissed him on the forehead. “You know you can always talk to me, right?”

“I know. Thanks, Mom. G’night.”

“Night, sweetie.”

Carter headed for the shower. By the time she came out, Taylor’s light was out and she could hear him snoring softly in the darkness.

She leaned against the doorframe for a moment. He really was a young man now, and a handsome one. A smart one. And one with a good heart.

And if Tia couldn’t see that, it was her loss.

She liked the young man her son had become.

Joss’ mouth screwed into a wry smile. Well, yeah, she liked him. He’d been brought up right, hadn’t he? She pulled his door mostly closed and went to bed herself.

But in the darkness, she stared at the ceiling and thought about Joey Carmichael. Taylor’s instincts had mirrored her own. There was something off about the whole situation. Something not right. She wasn’t sure what it was. But she should probably remind Taylor not to let the boy actually take the computer with him anywhere. Not that he would, normally, but with the right sad story …

She shook her head, rolled over, and tried to sleep.

                                                           x  x  x  x  x 

“We’re okay, Uncle Harold,” Will said, for the fourth time.

“Of course you are.” Harold leaned and pulled the thin white blanket tighter around Julie’s shoulders. “You’ve lost your coats and you’re barefoot in the freezing rain, but other than that you’re just fine.”

“We had to do something.”

“I know.” Finch sat back and looked at them. He’d wrapped them in pilfered hospital blankets and bundled them into the back of the limousine, which was already warm. Once he’d sorted out their condition and whereabouts, which had taken an unreasonable amount of time, he’d sent Mr. Reese home. He was grateful for his partner’s presence to that point, and he’d told him so, but they both saw no reason to complicate the situation unnecessarily. Skydd had sent operatives to replace Thomas and Torano; they’d gone home, presumably in search of dry, less flammable clothes.

Will and Julie were chilled and damp, but they were unharmed. Safe. “I know, Will,” he said more softy.

“And I really am sorry they scared you like that.”

He gave the boy a small smile. “At least you got your phone back.”

“And my wallet.”

“I could pick you up some dinner on the way.”

Will and Julie exchanged a look. “Can we get a raincheck?” Julie asked diplomatically. “I really just want a peanut butter sandwich and another shower and to fall into bed.”

“All right,” Harold agreed. They both smelled faintly of gasoline still.

“Unless you want to …” Will began.

“No,” Finch said firmly. “I absolutely do not want to impose on you. I just want to help.” He shrugged. “To take care of you.”

“We’re okay,” Will said again. “Really.”

“I know.” He sat back, made himself breathe deeply. “I know.”

                                                           x  x  x  x  x 

Morning brought continuing icy rain, but no new Number.

Grace Hendricks had sent an e-mail accepting her friend’s invitation to the art show.

Harold nodded with satisfaction. He would continue to monitor her e-mails, just for the day. Just to make sure things went according to plan.

He minimized the window and started several other routine processes running. He considered going to one of his offices later, if the quiet held. He could check on Grace’s afternoon from his tablet; everything else could run independently. Perhaps a nice lunch. There were several new places he’d been meaning to try, and the weather would keep the crowds down.

Thinking of lunch brought him to thinking of Christine Fitzgerald, who occasionally joined him for lunch, and the fact that he hadn’t answered her e-mail. He started one more program running, then reached for his phone. It rang in his hand.

He wasn’t even surprised to see the caller ID. “Great minds,” he greeted as he clicked it on. “Good morning.”

“Morning,” Christine answered. “Are Will and Julie okay?”

Harold paused. “They’re fine. How do you know about it?”

“They were on the news.”

“Please tell me you’re joking.”

She paused for five seconds. “Link ahoy,” she announced.

A textchat window came up on Finch’s screen, with a link. His habitual suspicion flared for an instant. He clamped down on it and clicked the link. It took him directly to a news clip, an attractive woman in front of a screen talking about the pile-up. The story cut to footage taken with a cell phone. It was dark and jerky, low quality and taken from a distance. He could make out figures, not faces. But since he knew who it was in advance, he was able to recognize them.

“How did you know it was them?” he asked, starting the video over.

“Will’s bag has little duct tape red crosses on it.”

Finch squinted at the screen. He saw a police officer retrieving the bag from a car, carrying it to the flipped car. He could, vaguely, make out the markings. “I never noticed them.”

“That’s because I just put them on. Makes it easier to identify in baggage claim.”

“You put a tracker under the tape?” Finch guessed.

“Like Julie wouldn’t find that in ten seconds flat. It’s just tape.”

“Hmmm.” It was an odd sensation, knowing that Christine was taking precautions on behalf of Nathan’s son. It shouldn’t surprise him, of course. He was the one who’d introduced them, with the express purpose of adding to the small community of people who would look out for Will. But it was disconcerting to be out of the loop of even such a small liberty.

“So, are they okay?” she repeated.

“They’re fine.” Finch shook himself and shut down the video. He was very pleased, he told himself firmly, that Christine was taking an active interest in the couple. “I assume by now they’ve managed to wash off all the flammable liquids.”

“Good.”

“You sent me an e-mail,” he reminded her. “What do you need?”

“I have a Nathan-related question.”

Finch sat back from his keyboard. “Go ahead,” he said carefully.

“It’s kind of a visual. You going to be around?”

“As far as I know.”

“I’ll be over in a bit. This is not anything earth-shaking, just … curious.”

“Alright.” He wasn’t convinced, but he trusted Christine to know precisely how far to escalate such matters. “I’ll see you then.”

He clicked his phone off and stared absently at the monitor in front of him. He’d made sure that Christine was the one Will asked to review and translate his father’s documents for him. She was Harold’s real-life firewall, his insurance that his nephew wouldn’t learn anything that he shouldn’t. Finch would never have arranged it if he wasn’t absolutely confident of Christine’s loyalty. But the idea that she’d found something he hadn’t anticipated, something ‘curious’, made him highly uncomfortable.

It was necessary, he reminded himself, to allow her to know things in order to prevent others from knowing them. He had created this arrangement with exactly this sort of eventuality in mind. She’d found something, and that was bad. But _she’d_ found it. Not Will, not Julie, not some unknown and uncontrollable consultant. And that was good.

Finch heard Reese’s footsteps on the stairs, quiet and catlike, but not too quiet. He focused on the screens again So many things going on. Identities to maintain, fortunes to tend, businesses to run. And Grace. And Christine. For a moment it all seemed overwhelming.

Then John set a cup of tea at his elbow and everything clicked back into focus.

                                                           x  x  x  x  x 

“We should get them something,” Will said when he woke up.

At his side, Julie stirred. “Huh?”

“Louisa and Bella. We should get them something.”

“Okay.”

“I don’t know what.”

Julie rolled up on one elbow and looked at him. “We’d had this discussion, Ingram. If you want this relationship to work, you’re going to have to follow the rules.”

He grinned up at her. “I forgot.”

“No decisions before coffee. Ever.”

“I know. Sorry.”

Julie rolled off the other side of the bed and grabbed her robe. She sniffed as she tied the belt. “I swear I still smell like gasoline. Or you do.”

“We should go for a swim,” Will offered. “Soak the rest of it off.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

“I’m going to miss having a pool in the living room,” he mused. “Maybe we should re-think selling this place.”

Julie gazed at him steadily.

“Coffee, right,” he finally said. He clambered out of bed and followed her to the coffee pot.

                                                           x  x  x  x  x  


	4. Chapter 4

Christine Fitzgerald was almost to the front door when the boy came in. She stopped, surprised. “Lee?”

Lee Fusco, Lionel’s son, was dressed for school and had his backpack over his shoulder. “Hey, Miss Scotty,” he said, looking at the floor.

“Is your dad parking the car or what?”

“No, I’m …” His face went red and he didn’t seem to know where to look. He shifted from foot to foot, glanced up at her. “I’m, um, here by myself. I need to talk to you.”

“Okay.” Christine dropped her own bag on a chair and took off her coat. “You want some mocha or something?”

“I, um, no, that’s okay.”

She gestured him into a chair on the other side of the table and sat down. “Does your dad know you’re here?”

“No.”

“Ah, shit, Lee.”

He looked up again. “I didn’t know what else to do. Dad said if I got jammed up and I didn’t know where to go I could talk to you.”

“You can talk to me,” Christine assured him. “Take your coat off.”

He did, awkwardly, without standing up. “You can’t tell him I was here. He’ll kill me.”

“No kidding.”

“Really. You gotta promise.”

“I can’t, Lee.” Christine shook her head. “Not until I know what’s going on.”

The boy hesitated. “I should go.” He started to shrug back into his coat.

“If you leave now, I’ll be on the phone before you get to the sidewalk.”

The boy looked stricken. Scared.

“Look,” she said calmly, “tell me what the problem is. If we can solve it without getting your dad into it, we will. And then I’ll decide whether he needs to hear about it or not. But I can’t just promise you I won’t tell him until I know what it is. I won’t lie to you that way. If I think you’re in danger, or I think he needs to know, I will help you tell him.”

The boy stared at the table top for a very long time, thinking it through.

“It’s the best offer you’re going to get,” Christine finally said. “And trust me, your dad’s a lot better at handling things than you’re giving him credit for.”

Lee shook his head. “It’s not that. He’s a required reporter.”

“A what?”

“We learned in school, in health class. If I tell him, he has to report it.”

She felt her pulse start to race. _Required to report child abuse. Cops, teachers, social workers. Damn it._ She took a deep breath and made herself speak calmly. “Okay. Let’s have it.”

He looked around the café anxiously. “The thing is … I have this friend. And she was, um …” The boy’s cheeks got redder every second. He looked away again. “When you caught me, when your computer caught me, um, looking for, um …”

“Porn,” Christine supplied.

“Yeah.” She didn’t think he could be any redder, but he managed one more shade. “It wasn’t me. It was my friend.” He glanced up swiftly. “I know what that sounds like, like everybody must say that, but it … it’s true. It really was her and not me. I didn’t even know about it.” He looked down again. “I didn’t even know girls liked that stuff.”

Christine fought to keep her face blank. “Yeah, they do, sweetie.”

Lee took a deep breath. That seemed to have been the hard part of the conversation, because his cheeks slowly faded to a more normal color. “Anyhow, yesterday after school, she asked me if she could look on my computer again. And I told her no, ‘cause, you know, I got caught and I knew I’d get caught again, and I thought she’d be cool with it, but she, um, she started crying.”

The woman waited.

“And so I got to thinking,” Lee finally continued. “When she was looking before, she wasn’t just, you know, looking at naked guys or whatever. She was searching in girls. Which was kinda … I mean, I don’t care if she’s into girls, but I was surprised ‘cause I kinda thought she liked me, but whatever. But I remembered she was looking for something really really specific. A description of a certain girl. Like, you know, if you were looking for an actress but you couldn’t remember her name so you just put in her description?”

“She wasn’t looking for an actress, though.”

The boy shook his head gravely. “I think she was looking for herself.”

Christine sighted softly. Then she reached across the table and took Lee’s hand. “Did she tell you who’s taking the pictures?”

“She wouldn’t tell me anything. And I didn’t really ask. She was crying. I was just … when it was going on I just wanted her to stop crying, you know?  But then I got to thinking, last night, about everything she said and then all the stuff she didn’t want to talk about and I … but if I’m wrong, if she’s just … I don’t know, Dad says everybody explores and maybe she’s just … I mean, if you accuse somebody of this and it’s wrong, her whole family could be … but if it’s not, I can’t just …can you help me? Please?”

“Oh, yes,” Christine said. “I can help you. And I will.” She squeezed his hand. “As it happens, I am probably the best predator hunter in the city. I will find out who’s taking this girl’s picture, if anybody is, and I will stop them.”

He looked at her steadily for the first time. “Thank you.” And then, “What about my dad?”

“Let me dig around some,” she said. “I’ll see what’s up, if this has any legs to it. But then we’re going to have to tell him.” She considered the boy. Because whatever happened, the children – Lee and his friend both – were going to need some kind of counseling. Decent therapy now might prevent a lifetime of pain for them. But she’d need Lionel’s help to make it happen.  

“But he’ll have to report it.”

“Like I said, I’ll dig first. So we’ll know exactly what we’re dealing with.” She nodded to herself. “If we need him to, your dad will bend the rules for us.”

Lee looked at her doubtfully.

“This will be okay,” Christine assured him. “I will find out the truth, I promise. If someone’s hurting your friend, I will stop them. And then I will help you talk to your dad about it. This is going to be okay.” She released his hand and sat back. “I need you to tell me everything you know about her. And then – how did you even get here?”

“On the bus.”

“Won’t the school call your mom when you don’t show up?”

The boy looked away again. “She always leaves her e-mail logged in when she’s home. I sent a message to my school saying I had a dentist appointment this morning. And then I just got on a different bus.”

“And you came all the way here by yourself.”

He gave a small imitation of his father’s smirk. “I can read a bus schedule.”

“You display a disturbing level of original thinking,” Christine answered. She considered. “If I take you back to school, can you get through the rest of the day? Keep your game face on?”

Lee nodded. “Yeah.”

“All right. Let’s do that, then. And I’ll find out what I can.”

“Should I say something to Marisa?”

“No. Let me handle it. You have a cell phone?”

“Yeah.”

“All right.” She brought got a pad and pen from the converted bar and gave it to him. “Write down your number, and everything you know about her. I’ll call you when I know something, but that’ll probably be after school, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Let’s go, then. You can write while I drive.”

Lee scrambled back into his coat. “Thank you.”

“You can thank me if I actually accomplish anything.” She grabbed her own coat. “Come on.”

                                                           x  x  x  x  x 

Red Geis stared at the empty lot.

He looked at the scrap of paper he’d scrawled in the business center. Then he looked at the addresses on each side of the lot. He was in the right place. He hadn’t had any doubt, of course. It had been decades since he’d lived here, but he hadn’t forgotten his first home.

He’d shut off the GPS in the rental car within three blocks of the hotel. It was too cheerful, too annoying. And he thought he knew his way around still. He didn’t, of course; even the streets he remembered had changed. But his general sense of direction was true. He’d only made a few wrong turns before he got there. 

He remembered everything about the house that had stood there. The scraggly twisted tree in the back yard. The loose board in the living room floor that he used to kick while he sprawled on his stomach watching cartoons. The way the back screen door squeaked. The light over the kitchen sink that flickered sometimes.

And other things. So many other things.

The house was gone. It looked like it had burned down. There was nothing there now but rubble, hidden in high brown weeds that the winter hadn’t quite killed, and trash. A short pile of bricks stood where the chimney had been.

It seemed appropriate, somehow.

Geis climbed out of the car and walked to the sidewalk. He looked up and down the street. No one was out. He doubted that anyone who lived here would know where the man had gone, anyhow. It looked like it had been years since the fire. Of course the phone book hadn’t been updated. No one even used phone books any more. He should have used the computer.

He looked around one last time. Then he got back in the car, reluctantly turned on the GPS, and drove to nearest library branch. It was closed; apparently it had been for some time. So much for modern navigation. It took him half an hour and several wrong turns to find the next-closest one. It took him even longer to make the public-access computer tell him what he wanted to know.

He missed the simplicity of the basic computer on his desk in the precinct. He knew what he was doing there; he could find anything. This whole internet thing was a pain in the ass.

Eventually, he found what he was looking for. Maybe.

Then he had to find a city map; he couldn’t bear the GPS voice any more.

By the time he left, the librarian was watching him curiously. Belatedly, Geis realized that he’d been muttering under his breath for some time. He shrugged, embarrassed, and walked out.

                                                           x  x  x  x  x 

Harold Finch’s phone chirped softly.

He glanced at the screen. There was no message.

He stood up and got his coat. Bear bounced to his feet. “Yes,” Finch said, “you might as well come along.” He pocketed the phone, got the dog’s leash, and left the library.

Ten blocks away, a pay phone rang. Bear waited patiently while Finch answered it and listened. Then they walked back to the library.

The dog trotted over to his food bowl, which should have been empty. He picked up something from it and crunched happily. Finch shuddered at the sound of the mouse skull crushing between the dog’s teeth. He needed to remember to start checking the bowl before Bear did. On reflection, though, the idea of removing the mouse heads that the cat deposited there was just as distasteful as listening to the dog eating them. He shuddered again and clicked on his phone. “Mr. Reese?”

“New Number, Finch?”

“Yes.”

“I’m on my way.”

Harold detoured to the drawer and got a special treat for Bear. They were a new type which he and Reese had researched and located together. They were mint-scented.

Finch told himself that they took the vague and probably imaginary smell of carrion off the dog’s breath.

On second thought, he got another treat and gave them both to the dog.

Still vaguely dissatisfied, he sat down at his computer and started the research on their new Number.

                                                           x  x  x  x  x 

They started at FAO Schwartz.

Will stopped just inside the door of the massive toy store and looked around helplessly. “We don’t even know what she likes.”

“Tigers,” Julie pronounced simply.

“Tigers.”

“We talked about it in the ER. She loves tigers. Everything tigers. But not Tigger. She is not into the Pooh thing. That’s for babies.”

Will nodded. “The things you learn about people,” he said. “Okay, tigers.”

“We should get them a new car seat,” Julie said, gesturing to a section to the side. They walked that way.

“The one they had did fine.”

“They’re like motorcycle helmets,” she said. “Once they’ve been in an accident they should be replaced.”

“I did not know that.”

“That’s because you don’t have a hundred siblings.” She sighed. “Crap. I’d managed to forget about that.”

“I’ll be fine with your parents,” he insisted. “Maybe they need a _car_.”

“My parents?”

Will smirked at her.

“They should have insurance,” Julie answered. “Although, that car was pretty old, they may only have liability. I suppose the driver that caused the wreck’s insurance should cover them.”

“The drunk? You think _he’s_ insured?”

“Hmmm.” Julie walked into the row of car seats, bypassing the newborn models. “Good point. It’s tricky, though. I mean, toys, small gifts, people don’t get upset about. Cars are … big.”

“I wonder if Uncle Harold could find out.”

“About the insurance? Probably.”

“If they’re not covered,” Will said slowly, “I wonder if he could find some way to … have the insurance pay them off anyhow.”

“You mean launder our money on an insurance check?” she said.

“You think that’s a bad idea.”

“I think it’s a _great_ idea,” Julie corrected. “And I think your uncle could probably pull it off.”

“He’s always been good at subterfuge.” Will shook his head. “I meant to give you the ring this morning.”

Julie squinted at him. “How do subterfuge and engagement rings go together, exactly?”

“Well, Uncle Harold, and then Dad, and then Mom, and then Mom’s ring. Obviously.”

“Obviously.” Julie nodded, unconvinced. “Your mind is a fascinating place sometimes, Ingram.”

A saleswoman came up to them. “Can I help you?”

“We need a car seat,” Julie announced. “For a toddler. She’s two.”

The woman nodded, led them a little further down the row. “How much does she weigh?”

“Thirty-two pounds.”

Will looked at her and Julie smiled. “They weighed her in the ER.”

“You probably want a convertible model, then,” the saleswoman said. “Something that can be used as a booster when she gets a little bigger.”

“What’s the safest convertible you have?” Will asked.

“Well, this one,” she said, pointing. She looked them over subtly; the jeans, the casual shoes, the older coats. “But it’s quite expensive. If you’d like something a little more economical …”

“Price doesn’t matter,” Will assured her. He smiled to himself. He almost never used those words, even though they were completely true. This time he liked the way they sounded.

“Then this is the one you want.”

Julie nodded. “Can you deliver?” They’d taken a cab, because parking was always a nightmare; getting something as big as a car seat home would be problematic.

“Of course. Come to the check-out and I’ll get your information. Or do you have more shopping to do?”

“We need a tiger,” Will announced cheerfully.

The woman hesitated. “A tiger. A _toy_ tiger?”

“A tiger for a two-year old.”

The woman glanced to her left, and Will realized that she’d caught sight of the security guys who were following them. They were a comfortable distance away; he’s mostly forgotten about them himself. To her credit, the saleswoman’s attitude barely shifted; she probably treated all her customers as if they could afford to shop there.

She led them to the land of stuffed animals.

There were life-sized stuffed tigers, and there were palm-sized little toys. “Something cuddly,” Julie said. The two of them started looking through the assortment. Of course the tigers were mixed in with the other animals, so it took a bit of searching.

“I’ll be right back,” the sales lady said. “I might have something else to show you.”

When she was out of earshot, Will said, “We don’t even know her last name.”

“Bella’s?”

“Yeah. We can’t have them ship to her house if we don’t know where she lives.”

Julie considered, then brought out her cell phone. She added the code that would block her information when she dialed, and asked for admissions. “Hi,” she said when they answered, “this is Melanie, from Dr. Cooker’s office. He saw a patient in the ER last night and I’m trying to get the billing together, but I can’t read his notes.”

Will looked at her, bemused.

“Yes, a little girl, two years old. She was in a car accident. Brought in with her pregnant mother? It looks like her name is, it starts with a B, maybe Bella? Bertha? This man, I swear …”

“Bella Flores, yes, that looks right. I guess. Do you have an address?”

Will gave her his notepad and she scribbled the address down. “Thanks so much.”

As she put her phone away, he shook his head. “Speaking of good at subterfuge.”

“Hey, I got it, didn’t I?”

“Remind me about the ring when we get home.”

She made a face. “Y’know, maybe we should wait on the ring until you meet my family.”

“Julie …”

“It’s not that I don’t want to marry you, I promise. But if I walk in there with a rock on my hand they will lose their minds. More than they’re already going to.”

Will sighed. “Fine. But remind me to show it to you. We probably have to get it sized or whatever anyhow.”

The saleswoman came back with a t-shirt on a hanger. It was covered with black and orange stripes, and said the word _Tiger_ across the front. “I thought you might like this,” she said.

“I love that,” Julie answered. “Is that the right size, do you think?”

“It should be, for her weight. I also found this.” She brought out a clear vinyl bag. The contents were also tiger-striped. “It’s a car seat cover.”

“Perfect,” Will pronounced. He picked up a tiger off the shelf. It was very squishy and soft. “And this.”

Julie reached and picked up a smaller version of the same tiger. “And this one, for the baby.”

“Yes.”

The saleswoman smiled. “There’s an infant, too?”

“On its way.”

“We have the shirt in newborn size, too.”

Will grinned. “Yes, to all of it.”

It took rather a long time to get checked out. They picked wrapping paper for the tigers and shirts, wrote out a little card for the parents, and gave the clerk the address to have them delivered to. She seemed pleased to see Will’s onyx Amex card, but again she didn’t change her behavior in any discernible way.

Will and Julie didn’t notice the woman with the cell phone, apparently a tourist taking a video inside the store. The bodyguards did, but the giant toy store was such a New York landmark that they didn’t find it remarkable. Or reportable.

 

 

 


	5. Chapter 5

Joss Carter scowled at her cell phone before she looked at it. She fully expected the screen to say ‘Blocked Number’. Instead, it said, ‘Chaos’.

That was new. She clicked it on. “Carter.”

“Hi, it’s Scotty Fitzgerald, please don’t say my name out loud if Lionel’s sitting right there.”

Carter looked up. Her partner had come in a while ago, checked his computer, grumbled under his breath, and gone into the interrogation room. He was still in there, talking on his cell phone, with the door closed. She probably didn’t want to know what he was doing. “He’s not. What’s up?”

“I need a favor. Feel free to say no.”

“I always do.”

“I have a name, and I need to know if this guy has a record.”

Carter frowned to herself. “I thought you had access to the system.”

“I did. But they did a purge after the big HR shake-up and my user name got deleted. I called CCU, but LaBlanca is out on a bust.”

“And our _other friend_ doesn’t know about this?”

“No.”

“Why don’t you want Fusco to know?”

“That’s …complicated.”

“Yeah, I’m gonna need a better answer than that.”

Christine paused. “It’s one of Lee’s classmates. And he’s not sure.”

Joss sat up straight. “Why didn’t he tell Fusco?”

“Required reporter.”

Carter scowled. “If this name pans out …”

“I’ll tell Lionel myself, I promise. And get both of these kids into therapy. But I don’t know if there’s anything there yet.”

“Where there’s smoke,” Joss said grimly. She checked on her partner; he was still on the phone. “If I help you with this, you better not drop any bodies behind it.”

“You have me confused with our _other friend_ ,” Christine said. “I’ll be glad to destroy this guy’s life, but I’ll never get close enough to him to end it. I promise.”

Carter considered. She believed the hacker, mainly because she knew how she worked. Fitzgerald had been catching internet predators before Joss met her. Sherry LaBlanca over in CCU didn’t have any problem with her work. Christine would wrap up the evidence in a nice tight package and turn it over to the police. She wouldn’t shoot anybody. “All right. What’s the name?”

“Billy Jorgansen.”

“Probably William,” Joss muttered, typing.

Fusco came back to his desk. Carter nodded to him, kept talking. He wouldn’t know who she was talking to at this point. “Got a DOB?”

“He might be thirty or forty,” Christine offered.

“Hmmm.”

“I have a possible current address, if that will help.”

“Yes, please.”

As soon as Christine started, Joss was able to identify the target. “Got him. Looks like he’s got a drinking problem. Two drunk and disorderly charges, one DUI, all in the past two years. Plus one simple assault. Probably a bar fight. And then there’s …” she paused, scanning through the case summary. “Looks like before that he got himself arrested for posting pictures of a naked minor on the internet.”

Fusco’s head came up. Carter held up one finger, the universal signal for ‘I’ll tell you later’.

“That’s what I figured,” Christine said over the phone.

“But he was never charged. Hang on, let me pull up the case notes.” She shifted the phone to her other hand and typed in the report number. “Okay. He said he didn’t know she was underage, and she sent him the pictures voluntarily from his phone. And she said she thought they were just for him. She was seventeen, but there were texts where she said she was nineteen. They never charged him.”

“Figures,” Christine answered, unsurprised.

“Same woman got a restraining order against him two weeks later. No notes about him violating it.”

“That’s it?” the hacker asked.

“That’s all I see. Worth a longer look, I’d say.”

“Definitely. Thanks.”

“Hey,” Carter said before she could hang up, “don’t forget about the follow-up, right?”

“I won’t. Thanks again.”

“What was that?” Fusco ask as she clicked off her phone.

“LaBlanca. Friend of mine over at CCU,” she lied easily. “She’s out on a bust and her on-board is down, so she needed me to look up a suspect for her. Easier than going through channels.”

“He sounds like a real charmer.”

Carter smirked. “A regular prince. What have you got going on?”

Fusco smirked back. “Legwork for our friend in the suit. What else?”

“Better you than me.”

“Yeah. But this is kinda weird. They wanted me to call and check up on a cop from Toledo.”

“Toledo, Ohio?”

“I know, right?”

Joss shrugged. “Maybe they’re planning to open a branch office.”

“If they do,” Fusco answered, “I hope they spend a lot of their time there.”

                                                           x  x  x  x  x   

Tia and Taylor sat next to each other in Biology class. They’d been happy to grab the seats at the beginning of the year, when they’d been dating. Now that they’d broken up, it was awkward, but neither of them was willing to ask the teacher to change seats.

“Hey,” Taylor said when his ex sat down.

“Hi,” she answered.

That was the end of it.

Except that half-way through class, he looked over at her and she looked awful. Her face was pale and her lips were pressed together and she kept swallowing. “You okay?” he whispered.

“Fine,” she said. Her hand was shaking.

Five minutes after that she stood up and bolted from the room without a word.

The teacher paused in mid-sentence and looked at Taylor. The boy shrugged. The teacher went back to the lecture.

Tia didn’t come back before the end of the class.

                                                           x  x  x  x  x 

“Eric ‘Red’ Geis,” Finch said, taping a picture to the board, “is a bit of an anomaly.”

Reese walked over to look at him. The man was nearly bald, with a fringe of bright red hair, close-trimmed. He was wearing a dress police uniform. “He’s a cop.”

“From Toledo, Ohio,” Finch confirmed.

“Am I going to Ohio?” Reese asked carefully.

Finch shook his head. “No, he’s here. He arrived yesterday. By train.”

“Drug mule?”

“Pardon?”

“The easiest way to transport drugs and other contraband cross-country,” John explained, “is by AmTrak.”

“Ah. Well, that certainly is a possibility we’ll need to look into,” Finch allowed. “But I find it somewhat unlikely.”

“Tourist?”

“Also possible. Also unlikely.” Finch pulled another sheet off the printer and taped it up. It was an obituary. “His mother died four days ago. Natural causes; she was elderly and had been in poor health for some time. She was buried yesterday.” The genius shook his head. “My preliminary information is sketchy at best. Detective Geis doesn’t have much of an electronic footprint. No social media, no private e-mail that I’ve been able to access yet. What I’ve learned from public records is that he’s single, owns a own modest home which he paid off last year, has a respectable credit rating and not much debt. Lives within his means. Aside from his mother, he doesn’t seem to have any relatives. He’s been with the Toledo police department for twenty-three years, a detective for the last seven.”

“Any disciplinary history?”

“I have not been able to access their records as yet. I’ve sent an e-mail to Detective Fusco, detailing the information we need.

Reese continued to study the photo. In addition to the shock of red hair, the man’s eyes were striking, green, and he had a deep cleft in his chin. He wasn’t precisely a handsome man, but he was definitely distinctive. “So the last of his family died, and right after the funeral he got on a train and came to New York.”

A computer beeped softly, and Finch returned to his chair. “Interesting. Eric Geis was born here in New York in 1960. Brooklyn. His father died in 1969 and he and his mother moved to Toledo shortly thereafter. As far as I can tell, neither of them ever returned. Until now.”

“Maybe he’s just revisiting his roots.”

“Perhaps. But it seems unlikely that the Machine would alert us to a nostalgic visit.”

“Also unlikely that one of his friends from fourth grade has been holding a grudge all these years,” Reese answered.

“So the threat has likely followed him from Toledo.”

“Unless he _is_ the threat.” Reese frowned. “I need more background, Finch.”

“Of course.” Harold opened another screen. “For the moment, I can tell you that he’s staying at a mid-priced hotel, on a reservation that runs through next Tuesday. It doesn’t look like he’s logged onto their WiFi, and he hasn’t ordered anything from room service. He has, however, rented a car. I’m sending the license plate number to your phone.”

“Cell phone?” Reese asked.

Finch smirked. “He cares a very basic, inexpensive phone, talk and text only. No GPS.”

“On purpose?”

“Perhaps, but he’s had the same model for a number of years. We can listen to his calls, if you can get close enough to clone it, but it won’t help us locate him.”

His phone rang, and Finch stabbed it onto speaker. “Detective?”

“Sometimes,” Christine answered.

“Ah, sorry.”

“I’m going to have to postpone my visit,” she said. “Something came up.”

“Here, as well,” Finch said. “Are you sure it can wait?”

“It’s been in a cardboard box for three years. It can wait a day or two.”

“Very well.”

“But, um, I might need a favor,” Christine continued. “If someone calls this number, I may need an identity verification. I’ll text you the details.”

Finch’s eyebrows shot up. Before he could speak, Reese leaned over the desk. “ _You’re_ not going undercover,” he stated flatly.

“Not really. I just need an excuse to talk to somebody.”

“Wait for me,” he insisted. “I’ll talk to them for you.”

“You’re good, John, but they’re not going to let you walk into a public school and pull a ten year-old girl out of class.”

“They would with the right cover story.”

“Which I already have,” Christine snapped impatiently. “I’m trying to be subtle about this, not start a panic.”

Finch glanced at the phone’s screen. “Saying that you’re a school nurse checking for MRSA won’t start a panic?”

“Not if it’s handled right.”

“Christine …” Reese began.

“You’re hunting a predator,” Finch interjected. “Can we trust that you won’t confront him directly when you identify him?”

“I never do,” Christine answered. “And I have been doing this a while, you know.”

Harold looked at his partner. Reese glared, working his jaw, his mouth a tight, unhappy line. Then he turned away from the desk, back to the board.

“Leave your phone on,” Finch instructed emphatically. “And call us if you have any trouble. Anything at all.”

“I will,” she promised. “Later.”

The call went dead.

Finch walked back to join Reese at the board. “Mr. Reese …”

“She’s going to get herself shot one of these days,” John snarled.

“She’ll identify him remotely and turn over the evidence to the police,” Harold countered. “It’s what she’s always done in the past.”

Reese scowled at him. Then he jabbed his finger at the board. “Where is this guy now?”

“I’ll send the address of his hotel to your phone.”

“Do that.” Reese stalked toward the stairs. “I’ll stop and see Fusco first.”

                                                           x  x  x  x  x 

The second address Geis had obtained led him to a flop house. A long-term hotel, he amended in his head, as he had amended police reports in the past. It might be, in fact, a flea-infested, whore-crawling flop house, but you couldn’t call it that in writing, in case it got read out in court.

He went in. There was a heavy woman behind the counter, her hair up in a babushka, her loose white blouse faded gray. She peered at him through narrow reading glasses. “Cop,” she pronounced.

“Yes,” he admitted. He flashed his badge, with his index finger over the city name. “I’m looking for a man.”

“Ain’t we all, but the older I get, the quicker they run away.”

Geis smiled briefly. “His name is Daniel Geis. He’s about seventy.”

“Don’t suppose you have anything like a warrant, do you?”

“No,” Geis admitted. “I’m not even on a case. It’s a personal thing.”

“What kind of personal?”

“He’s my uncle.”

The woman snorted. “You let your uncle stay in a place like this?”

“I haven’t been able to locate him. Does he live here?”

“No.” She shrugged. “He did, ‘til about three weeks ago. Caught him with liquor in his room, Again. And those sluts. And he couldn’t make his rent. Had to bounce him.”

Geis swallowed. “So he’s … on the street.”

“Not my problem, sweetie. I let the freeloaders and drunks and whores stay, _I’m_ the one on the street.”

The detective turned and looked out through the window in the front door for a long moment. “Do you have any idea where he might have gone? Did he leave a forwarding address?”

“Nah. The government don’t issue checks any more, you know. Just load up them debit cards remotely.”

Geis did know. It used to be easy for cops to find people; if they left town, they’re leave a forwarding address with someone to be sure they got their benefits checks. Not any more. Damn automation. “Are there homeless shelters nearby?”

“There are,” she said, “but your uncle, he wouldn’t give up the booze. Most of them won’t let him stay long.” Her eyes narrowed. “You knew about the drinking, right?”

“I … it was a problem when he was younger. I didn’t know he was still drinking. But like I said, I haven’t seen him in a long time.”

“You know about the women?”

“No.”

“He, hmmm, he keeps some ladies with him, now and then. You know.”

“Ladies of the night?” he guessed.

“Exactly.” The woman looked relieved that she didn’t have to explain any more. She scratched her head through the handkerchief that covered it. “You want my advice, son?”

Geis didn’t, really, but he nodded.

“Leave him be. Go back wherever you came from and find someone else to be your family. This guy, he’s no good. And old dogs can’t learn new tricks. Even if you find him, he’ll be nothing but a burden to you.”

He studied her a moment. Then he nodded. “I’m sure you’re right.”

“You’re going after him anyhow.”

“Yes.”

“Your funeral.” She shrugged expansively. “There’s a soup kitchen, five blocks north. Ask for Robinson. If anyone knows where your uncle landed, it will be him.”

“Thank you,” Geis said sincerely. He thought about slipping her a tip, then decided against it. He nodded and walked out.

                                                           x  x  x  x  x 

“So what do we get a woman,” Will Ingram mused as they walked, hand in hand, “who has a toddler, a baby on the way, and a broken arm?”

“Tranquilizers,” Julie immediately suggested.

“Maybe a housekeeper,” he countered.

“Errrrm. Kinda pushing the ‘too much’ line, I think.”

“I suppose,” he sighed. He paused in front of an antique store. Or, he amended mentally, an art gallery. He wasn’t precisely sure, and from the look of it, the owner of the business wasn’t either. In the front window there was a big display of whirligigs, wind-driven yard decorations made of metal and brightly painted. Some were cars and planes and animals. Others were simply decorative impressionistic things. They were all beautiful, and they were all in motion.

“Those,” Julie pronounced at his elbow, “are cool as hell.”

“Yeah,” he breathed.

They went inside. The owner of the shop was a tall, elegantly-dressed black woman. “You saw the Simpsons,” she said warmly. Her accent was an odd, beautiful blend of New Orleans and the Bronx. “Come in, I have more.”

“Simpsons?” Julie asked.

“Vollis Simpson. He was a folk artist. Very prolific, very imaginative. He died recently. I have the biggest collection in the city, at the moment.” She looked them over. “But I’m thinking I’ll send one or two home with you.”

“They’re amazing,” Will said, looking around.

“There’s a big park down in North Carolina, a huge collection of his work, but here in New York, no one appreciates them much. No yards, I suppose.”

“We’re going to have a yard,” Will said.

“We are?” Julie asked.

“We have to have a yard. For the babies.”

The woman nodded wisely. “Oh, yes. Babies need a yard. At least a little one, so they can learn to walk in the grass.”

“We could get one for your parents,” Will ventured.

“Ah, no. They’re really not yard ornament people.” Julie considered. “Unless they’re really, really expensive.”

“Some of them are,” the woman ventured.

“I want this one,” Will said, pointing to a hugely elaborate silver construction. He looked around. “Damn. I want them all.”

Julie pointed to a much smaller one, about eight inches tall, tiny and elaborate. “Your uncle’s desk.”

“Yes. Christmas, maybe. He’s a pain in the ass to shop for.”

“Perfect.”

They walked through the store, looking at everything. In addition to the whirligigs, there were antiques and new hand-crafted items of every description. It was a dizzying display of colors and textures. “What do you recommend,” Julie finally asked, “for a pregnant woman with a toddler and a broken arm?”

The owner pondered. “Valium?”

Julie laughed. “That was my first suggestion, too.”

“Do you know what she likes? What her taste is?”

“Not a clue,” Will admitted.

The woman considered. “I suppose I shouldn’t steer you away from my business, but if I were her, I’d want someone to cook for me.” She went to her desk, which was cluttered with papers and more small items, and without hesitation found a business card. “This service will pick up from about a hundred different restaurants and deliver. I’m sure they could arrange some kind of gift delivery.”

“Perfect!” Will said. He took the card. “Can I keep this?”

“Of course. Tell them Rosanna sent you.”

“I will do that.”

They purchased the big whirligig and the small one, and arranged for them to be delivered to the loft. On their way out the door, Julie saw one more that she couldn’t resist. “Someone we know must need it,” she said.

Will tapped it, and the entire thing swiveled and spun in different directions. “It’s … chaotic,” he said. Then he grinned.

“Oh, yes,” Julie agreed. “But she doesn’t have a yard.”

“The new place might.”

“The new place?”

“Uncle Harold said she bought a building. She’s renovating an apartment there.”

“She’s leaving Chaos?”

Will hesitated. “I get the feeling there’s some history there. Some not-good history. Anyhow, it doesn’t sound like she’s going very far. Not closing the business or anything, just moving where she lives.”

Julie touched the multi-colored sculpture herself. It canted in a different direction. “She’ll love it.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah.”

                                                           x  x  x  x  x 

John Reese sat down on the park bench and handed the detective one of the two paper cups he carried.

“You got me coffee?” Fusco asked, surprised. “What’s the occasion?”

“I like to keep you on your toes.” He brought out his phone and held it between them so Finch could listen in – though he was pretty sure his partner didn’t real need his assistance to do so. “What’d you find out about Geis?”

The detective nodded sideways. “Well, I called Toledo, like the Professor asked. And by the way, thanks for the cover story, like I wouldn’t know how to make one up on my own.”

“Just trying to be of assistance, Detective,” Finch answered.

“Yeah, whatever. So I called his captain, told him Geis was looking for some help on a personal matter and I just wanted to cover my bases before I started handing out addresses. Just like I was _told_.” He shook his head. “Anyhow, this Geis? Seems to be a pretty straight shooter. Good investigator, closes a lot of cases. Boss has only good things to say about him. Of course, what’s he gonna say to an out-of-town cop he doesn’t know from Adam?”

“True.”

“Geis has never been married. Between the lines, he’s probably kind of a loner. Just him and his mom. She had a stroke six years back. He put her in a home, but he went to see her two, three times a week, every week.”

“She died recently,” Finch offered.

“Yeah. Geis took a couple weeks bereavement leave and then some vacation time he had coming. Said he needed to straighten out her affairs, take a little time off.”

“That worry them any back home?” Reese asked.

“It didn’t seem to. Like I said, he sounds like kind of a loner, so …” He let it trail off.

“And no indication of anyone that would have a grudge against him?”

Fusco smirked. “Kinda hard to ask a question like that over the phone, you know? But from what I could get, no, the captain didn’t think he was in any trouble. And didn’t know of him knowing anybody in New York. Just needing some time to get his head straight.”

“Finch,” Reese said, “we’re going to need to get into his case records.”

“Difficult,” Finch answered. “I’ll get started.”

John clicked off his phone. Fusco started to stand up, and he put his hand on his arm. “What?”

“What’s Christine up to?”

Fusco blinked. “She in trouble?”

“I’m asking you.”

“Yeah, well, I wouldn’t know, ‘cause _I’m_ not stalking her.”

“I’m not stalking her, Lionel,” Reese said patiently. “I’m just asking.”

“What do you think she’s up to?”

“She’s hunting a predator. A pedophile, from the sound of it. She hasn’t asked you for anything? Background on anybody?”

Fusco shook his head. “No. But she never does, so that doesn’t mean anything. She’s got a contact over at CCU.” He thought about it, shook his head. “If that’s what she’s doing, hunting, she’s been doing that for a long time. Since way before you and Four-Eyes got involved. And so what? It’s all on her computer anyhow. She just does her electronic thing and then turns it over to the cops.”

Which was, Reese realized, pretty much what Finch had told him, only in more words. They were both right. He just wasn’t satisfied. “She’s set up a cover identity so she can go talk to a girl in school.”

Fusco cocked his head, curious.

“Elementary school,” Reese elaborated.

“You think it’s a teacher? This guy she’s hunting? Or this lady, I guess. Whatever.”

Reese thought about it. Christine had said she needed to _talk_ to the girl. If the perp was a teacher, on the premises, she would have been trying to get the girl out of the building. She was meeting her at school probably because the child was being molested at home.

It still didn’t sit right. His intuition was pinging. He was too experienced to ignore it.

But Christine, more than Carter, almost more than Stanton, had been very clear about setting personal boundaries. _This far and no further._ She was intensely independent. She didn’t make idle threats, and she’d never said it in so many words, but he was very aware that if he pushed her too far, she could pack up and disappear. Simply walk away from the city and from him. Forever.

Away from him, and away from Finch.

He shook his head. He did not like it, at a deep and instinctual level. He didn’t want her associating with people like the one she was hunting. Cruel, abusive, violent. It didn’t help to remind himself that she’d been born and raised by _people like that_. That she’d dealt with _people like that_ all her life.

She ought to be able to stop now. She’d paid her dues.

And when every child was safe from every abuser everywhere in the world, maybe she could stop.

And when every killer and kidnapper and other monster in the world was gone, he and Finch could stop, too.

Reese sighed. “If you hear from her …”

“I’ll let you know.” Fusco stood up.

“Good. Thank you.”

The detective hesitated one more minute. He looked as if he was going to say something. Then he thought better of it. “Thanks for the coffee.” He walked away.

Reese stared after him. He wondered what the detective had been going to say. Then he decided he probably didn’t want to know. He checked his phone, then went to follow their Number.

 

 

 


	6. Chapter 6

“What are you looking for, Mr. Reese?” Finch asked in his earpiece.

“I don’t know,” John answered. He opened the closet and pulled down the man’s suitcase. “But I’ll know it when I see it.” He searched the bag, ran his hands over the lining. There were no irregularities. He put the bag back and went through the hanging clothes. It didn’t take long; the man had brought two suits with him, apparently, and he was wearing one of them.

The fabric of the remaining suit felt cheap. It also felt like every suit John Reese had owned before he went to work for the CIA. And since he’d gone to work for Finch – the billionaire had spoiled him. He’d never be able to go back.

Not that that was likely, anyhow. He’d be buried in a ridiculously expensive suit, if Finch had anything to say about it. If he got a funeral at all. Which was a fifty-fifty proposition, at best. He was equally likely to end up in a shallow grave in whatever clothes he died in.

Which would still be better quality than the career detective owned.

He closed the closet and moved to the drawers. Again, there wasn’t much to search. The only thing remarkable was half a roll of duct tape. Reese eyed it thoughtfully, then closed the drawer and looked around the room again.

The bottom of the bed was enclosed. Reese got down on his hands and knees and checked along the bottom of the side table and then the armchair. Nothing. He checked the underside of the desk and the desk chair. Checked all the drawers again, and then the closet. Finally he moved into the bathroom.

There weren’t many places to hide things in there. It only took Reese a moment to find the package taped to the back of the sink. He sat on the bathroom tile and unwrapped it.

“Mr. Reese?” Finch prompted.

Reese held the .45 up to the light and turned it over. “I’m going to go out on a limb, Finch, and say that Detective Geis is the perpetrator.”

“Are you sure?”

“No. But I can’t think of another reason that he would have brought his own drop gun all the way from Toledo.”

“New York is a dangerous city, Mr. Reese.”

Reese wrapped up the gun again. “It is, Finch. And I think it just got a little more dangerous.”

                                                           x  x  x  x  x 

As they came out of the store, an attractive dark-haired woman approached them. She had a small tape recorder in her hand and intense interest in her eyes. “Excuse me,” she said, “but are you William Ingram?”

 Julie immediately gestured for the bodyguard, who started to move in. Will said, “Yeah. Why?”

“I’m Maxine Angelis. From the New York Journal. I understand you rescued a woman and a child yesterday.”

“Uhhhhh … we helped. But it was definitely a team effort.”

“That’s not what it looked like on the video.” The reporter gestured to Julie. “You were there, too. The two of you are heroes.”

“Nnnnnnno,” Julie said flatly. She took a step back, pulled Will with her. Their security guard was at her elbow; his partner was behind the woman.

“We were in the right place at the right time to help, once,” Will said. “The heroes are the first responders, the men and women who do that every day of their lives.”

“And we’re done here,” Julie said firmly. She retreated into the store, pulling her fiancé with her. The bodyguard covered the door. The reporter, frustrated, called a few more questions to them, then moved down the block and waited.

“We’ll get the car,” the guard said.

“Thank you.”

Will was flustered. “That’s never happened before,” he said. “Somebody recognizing me on the street like that.”

“That’s because there aren’t any pictures of you out there,” Julie said.

“What?”

“You’re not on the internet anywhere. Except for personal friends and people you work with, no one knows what you look like.”

“What do you mean, there’s no pictures of me?”

“I’ll show you, when we get home.” Julie kept her eyes on the reporter. The woman was talking on her phone, waving her free hand animatedly. She seemed happy.

“So how did she know who I was?”

Julie shook her head. “I don’t know. It’s probably a fluke.”

“I shouldn’t have talked to her,” Will said.

“No.”

“She just caught me so off-guard.”

“I know.”

The second bodyguard double-parked in front of the store in a town car. The one who had stayed with them opened the door. “Ready?”

“I think we might be overreacting,” Will ventured.

“Maybe, sir. But we’d rather be on top of the situation.”

Ingram sighed. “We were going to lunch.”

“That’s fine.”

Grudgingly, Will followed Julie to the car.

                                                           x  x  x  x  x 

“Mr. Reese?”

“Yes, Finch?” the op said in his ear.

Finch gazed contentedly at his computer screen. “I’ve got a lead, finally. Mr. Geis used a public library computer to search of a name named _Daniel_ Geis. I’m not sure what their relationship is yet, but given Daniel’s date of birth, he could be his father.”

“What do we know about him?”

“Not much,” Finch admitted. “I’ve just started my search, but as with many older people, he has no internet presence at all. I do, however, have a last known address on him.”

“It’s a place to start,” Reese said.

“Sending it now.”

                                                           x  x  x  x  x 

She shouldn’t have even bothered with credentials, Christine thought grimly. The school secretary had barely looked at the carefully-aged badge she wore on a lanyard around her neck. The fact that she had a badge at all, and that she’d sent an e-mail from a hacked account about her visit, was evidently enough. The woman wasn’t going to bother calling the number Harold was covering to check on her ID.

The secretary showed her to the nurse’s office, took her list and glanced over the names. “Kind of a weird mix,” she said.

“City Kickers Soccer Group,” Christine answered, with boredom. “Their coach’s husband has a staph infection, could be MRSA. I guess they’re waiting to get the labs back, but they want to be out ahead of it.”  

The woman nodded. “Yeah, I got the e-mail from the superintendent’s office. I hope to hell you don’t find anything. The last time was a holy mess.”

“I know,” Christine agreed. In the fall, just after school started, they’d had to close for three days while that staff wiped down everything with disinfectant. It made it a perfect cover. “That’s why we’re keeping it quiet this time. But, you know, if it comes out, this way we can say we took a look. Proactive.”

“CYA,” the secretary scowled. “”How you gonna keep the girls quiet about it?”

“Chickenpox.”

The woman nodded. “I’ll send them in.”

“One at a time, please. I don’t want them comparing notes.”

“Yeah. I’ve been in an elementary school for a while.”

Christine smiled. “Thank you.”

She stuck to the script with all the girls. Did they have any wounds that didn’t seem to be healing? Fevers? Blisters? Rashes? Bumps? They all denied anything like that. Christine knew from their school records that they’d all received the varicella vaccine. She told them as much, kept her voice bored, her eyes mostly on her big stack of papers. Just had to check the boxes.

They were pre-teens, old enough to know the bureaucratic drill and to think nothing of it. Ten minutes out of class, a little break in the routine. Yippee.

She’d put Marisa Finley last on the list on purpose. And she knew as soon as she looked at the girl. It was in the way she kept her hands clasped in front of her, the way she kept her eyes down. The way she jumped when Christine closed the door behind her.

The hacker felt sick. She would have liked to be wrong. She never was.

Christine moved her chair around the end of the table and sat down next to the girl, so their knees were almost touching. But she leaned back, not crowding her. “Marisa,” she said quietly, “we need to talk.”

The girl’s eyes flickered up, then back down. “About chickenpox. I heard.”

“No. About Billy Jorgansen.”

The girl looked up. Her eyes went wide, her face bright red. “How did you … Oh my God … you can’t … oh, please, _please_ don’t say anything!”

Her eyes filled with tears and fear. Christine snagged a tissue from the box and gave it to her. “Marisa, I’m here to help you.”

“You can’t,” Marisa answered. Her voice was edged with panic. “You can’t, you can’t. He said he’d … oh God, you can’t, if he finds out …”

“He threatened you,” Christine said calmly. It was not a question.

“He said … Facebook … the school page … everyone would know, everyone would see …he called me a slut …” She stopped trying to blink back her tears and simply sobbed. “Oh, God, you can’t!”

“I am not going to hurt you,” Christine said firmly. She reached across the space between them and took the child’s hand. She would have liked to hug her, gather her up and hold her in her arms, but she knew it would just send the girl further into panic. As it was, Marisa pulled away from her touch, then grabbed her hand again, squeezed it so hard it hurt. “And he is not going to post anything on Facebook or anywhere else. By the time you get home from school today he will be in jail.”

The girl looked up at her, startled. “That … that fast?”

“Yes.” Christine leaned forward a little. “This is over. He is not going to hurt you, ever again. Understand?”

Marisa blinked quickly, then dabbed at her eyes. “But … how … who are you?”

“I work with the police. I track pedophiles.”

“How did you find out?”

“That doesn’t matter.”

“But …” The girl looked wildly around the room. She grabbed another tissue and blew her nose. “Today. He’s going to jail _today_?”

“Yes.”

“But do I have to …”

“You may have to make a statement to the police. And you may have to be examined by a doctor. But that’s worst-case, and probably neither of those things will happen. They’ll have enough evidence without you.”

The girl’s eyes filled with fear again.

“And,” Christine went on, “if you have to talk to the police, you will talk to Detective Sherry LaBlanca. Sherry’s a friend of mine, and she is very good at what she does, and she will make it as easy for you as she can. Okay?”

“But he said …”

“He lied.”

The girl thought about it some more. Then she shook her head. “I can’t. I’m too scared.”

“This isn’t your choice,” Christine said firmly. “This isn’t your decision to make. The outcome isn’t your responsibility. I know what he’s done. I know he will continue to do it. And when you’re too old for him, he’ll find someone else, someone younger, and he will do the same thing to her. But he won’t. Because I’m going to stop him. Today.”

It sounded harsh, but she could see that it helped the child. To make this decision herself would have been an unbearable burden. To have it taken out of her hands was a huge relief. She began to cry again, but not in panic or in fear. “You can really do this?”

“Absolutely. And I’m going to. It’s already begun. But I need a couple answers from you.”

Marisa wiped her eyes again, straightened up. “Okay.” Her voice quivered.

“I need to know if you feel safe here at school.”

“Yes.”

“Do you feel safe at home, when Billy’s not there?”

This answer took a little longer. “Yes,” the girl finally said.

“Marisa?”

She shrugged. “My mom yells a lot. But she never hits me or anything. She just gets really mad.” Marisa considered. “And when Billy’s not there, she doesn’t get mad as much.” She swallowed, then added, very quietly, “She’s not going to believe me.”

“She won’t have to believe you,” Christine assured her. “ _I_ believe you. And I have evidence. There won’t be any question of believing.” 

The girl bit her lip. “I tried to tell her. But she didn’t believe me.”

“Oh, baby,” Christine sighed. She held one arm out, but waited until the child came into her embrace on her own. Then she held her, tightly, until Marisa squirmed. She released her immediately.

“I know this is going to be hard for you. But I promise it won’t be nearly as hard as what you’ve already been through. Sherry will make sure that you and your mom both get some counseling, okay? And she’ll _make_ your mom go. You both need to know that none of this is your fault. Jorgansen is a criminal and a pedophile. He is completely responsible for everything that happened to you. Understand?”

“He said … he said it was my fault. ‘Cause I slept in little short nightgowns, he said I led him on …”

“He’s a fucking liar,” Christine said bluntly.

Marisa jumped, hearing an adult curse in her presence, and then she nodded. “Okay.”

Swearing, Christine knew, got through the crap sometimes when nothing else could. “One more question,” she said. “Is anyone else working with Jorgansen?”

 The child looked toward the closed door for a very long time. Finally, she said, “His friend, sometimes.”

“Do you know his name? It’s okay if you don’t. I can find out.”

“Parker,” Marisa said. “I think … Joe. Joe Parker.”

“All right.”

“He scares me.”

“Joe does?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. I’ll find him.”

They sat quietly for a few minutes, while the girl gathered herself. Finally Christine went to the sink and wetted a couple paper towels. “Wash your face,” she said. “Do you want to go back to class, or do you want me to sign you out and take you someplace safe?”

She considered. “If you do that … my mom will know.”

“I suppose so. I can make them keep you here, say you’re feeling like you might puke.”

Marisa almost giggled. “I never talk in class anyhow. I’ll be okay.”

“All right. But if it gets to be too much for you, tell your teacher you’re gonna hurl and make her let you come back here, okay?”

“Okay.”

They sat a moment more. Finally Marisa stood up. “He’s really going to prison?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“You must be some kinda …” The girl stopped, her eyes glimmering again.

“I don’t like people who hurt kids,” she answered firmly. “You sure you’re okay?”

“I’m okay. I’m … yeah. I’m okay.”

Christine opened the door and sent the girl out.

The principal, hearing her, came out of his office. “That interview took an awful long time,” he commented brusquely.

“I asked if she had any questions,” Christine answered. “We ended up having quite a discussion about women’s reproductive development.”

The man’s cheeks went pink. “I see,” he said. Then he went back to his office and studiously ignored her.

Christine managed not to smile.

“That one?” the secretary asked quietly. “She’s flat as a board. She can’t have gotten her period yet.”

“She heard stuff on the playground, from the older girls,” Christine answered. “She was worried.”

The woman shook her head. “The fifth grade bitches love to scare the younger kids.”

“Same as when I was in school.” She shrugged.“Just a heads-up, she said she was feeling a little queasy. I told her to have her teacher send her back right away if she thought she was going to vomit.”

“Gee, thanks.”

Christine gave her a card. “I think we’re good on this MRSA thing, but if anything comes up, give me a call. You’re better off calling this number than the office. They suck at getting me messages.”

“I hear you.” The secretary put the card in the front of her center drawer. “You got many more to see?”

“Two more schools.” Christine rolled her eyes and left the office with a practiced unhurried stride.

                                                           x  x  x  x  x 

Fusco worked his jaw back and forth as he poked at the computer keys. He wished to hell the nuns in grade school had taught him how to touch-type instead of spending so much time on cursive writing. It would have been a lot more useful.

“Okay,” he finally muttered to the phone he balanced against his shoulder. “Daniel Geis is a real piece of work. Got a record going all the way back to the fifties. Petty crap, mostly. Disturbing the peace, drunk and disorderly, public intoxication. Some gambling, some fighting, some petty theft.”

“When was the most recent arrest?” Reese asked.

“Two years ago. Smacked a woman around in a parking garage. She claimed he was her pimp. But then she changed her story. Said she slipped.” He poked some more keys. “She did have a record for soliciting. And get this, she was born in 1952.”

“A sixty year old hooker?”

“Yeah.” Fusco sighed. “Guess they don’t have much of a retirement plan. Just like being a cop.”

“You have an address for her?”

“Doubt it’s any good.”

“Send it anyhow.”

“Send the whole file,” Finch said.

Fusco smirked. “Might have known you were listening in.”

“I always am, Detective.”

“Great.” He sent the file to the e-mail address Finch had given him. Then he scrolled back through the man’s record. “Looks just like a run-of-the-mill scumbag to me. Hard to believe his brother’s kid turned out to be a decent cop.”

“Not as uncommon as you’d think,” Finch answered.

“Anything else you need, or can I get back to my real job?”

“One more question, Detective. Some of these early files are marked ’86-water’. Any idea what that means?”

Fusco scrolled back through the list again. The Professor was right; back at the beginning, half a dozen of the cases were marked that way. “Paper files,” he explained. “They were all stored at the old HQ, before One PP was built. They had a flood there, lost a bunch of them. But that was way back in the late sixties, early seventies.”

“And nothing was digitized?”

“Early seventies,” Fusco repeated. “They never even heard of ‘digitized’ then.”

Finch sighed. “Very well. Thank you, Detective.”

Lionel clicked his phone off, then cleared his computer screen. He looked dourly at the stack of reports that were waiting for him. Then he stood up and went to get more coffee.

                                                           x  x  x  x  x 

At lunch time, Taylor walked over to Tia’s table. It had been _their_ table, until the break-up. Now he sat at the far side of the cafeteria with a couple of his bros. But today he skipped lunch entirely and just walked over to her. “Hey,” he said.

She looked up. Her eyes were red; she’d been crying. “What do you want?” she asked, but there wasn’t any heat in her voice.

“Just wanted to make sure you were alright.”

“I’m fine,” Tia sniffed.

“She’s not,” her friend Mara said.

Tia glared at her. “Shut up!”

Taylor crouched on his heels next to her. “What’s wrong?”

“ _Nothing_!” she insisted. “Just go away, okay? It’s got nothing to do with you.”

He stood up. “Okay,” he said. “But if I can help … you got my number.”

“I’m fine,” she said again. Then she put her head down and started to cry again.

Taylor reached for her hesitantly. Mara waved him off. “Later,” she mouthed silently.

He sighed and went to his table in exile.

 


	7. Chapter 7

Harold Finch worked diligently on the Eric Geis case. But in the early afternoon a small alarm sounded on his computer. He opened a side window and turned up the audio. He had eyes and ears inside the Sutton Gallery.

There were four photographers featured in the show. Only one of them interested Harold. His name was Gregg Everett. He was 49 years old, a widower with a 9-year old daughter named Elizabeth. They lived in Cape Cod. He owned a small gallery and frame shop of his own, catering to the tourist trade, and made a respectable living. He volunteered to teach art classes at the local Y and at a nearby prison.

His photos were mostly seascapes. But he had a small collection of city scenes that fascinated Finch.

Harold watched him mingle with the small crowd at the opening. He had a glass in his hand, but while Finch watched, he had it refilled at the bar with plain ginger ale.

Grace Hendricks came in, accompanied by Melissa Keynes. They checked their coats, moved into the gallery together. Then Melissa, despite the early hour, headed predictably to the bar.

Grace greeted some of the other ladies from her club. The president of the club chatted with her. They moved among the photos.

Harold’s fingers hovered over his cell phone. He had a text message all typed out, ready to send if necessary. It would be better if he didn’t. But he wouldn’t let this opportunity pass. If one more nudge was needed …

Grace reached the section of photos Harold had been enthralled with. As he’d hoped, she stopped and stared.

“Yes,” he whispered to himself.

His finger twitched. He didn’t touch the phone. Not yet. Not yet…

And then the owner of the gallery was at her elbow. “Have you met the artist?” she said brightly. “This is Gregg Everett. Gregg, this is …”

“Grace Hendricks,” he said happily. He shifted his drink to his left hand, held out his right one, then pulled it back and wiped it on his shirt. “Sorry,” he said. Finally he shook her hand, politely, and released it. “I’m a big fan.”

Grace smiled and blushed. “Of _me_?”

Finch felt his breath catch. That smile. The modest, self-effacing, beautiful smile. She didn’t know how talented she was. She never had. She painted because she enjoyed it; it always surprised her when someone else praised the results. She had no idea. And even on grainy surveillance feeds, even after all this time, her smile touched him.

“Of you,” Everett said. He gestured to the framed photos behind him. “These are all … you. Well, not you, but …” He paused, shook his head, embarrassed. “I saw your ‘Blue City’ layout in _American Artist_ and I … I had to see them for myself. The places you painted. So I did, and then I shot them. These are your places. The places you saw first.”

Grace was still smiling, and blushing. “Well, I didn’t see them first, really,” she protested. “They were always there.”

“You made them worth seeing.” Everett stopped, looked at his shoes. “I’m sorry. I must sound like a big dumb … fanboy.”

She giggled. “I don’t think I ever met a fanboy before.”

“Well, you have now. And if I seem like a big dumb dork and you just want to walk away I would totally understand that.”

Grace laughed easily. “Are you always this straightforward?”

“Yes, ma’am, I’m afraid I am.” He shrugged. “What you see is what you get.”

“You’ll never make it in New York, with thinking like that.”

“No, I know. It’s a wonderful city, but I could never live here.”

“Where do you live?”

“Cape Cod.”

“That must be beautiful.”

“It is,” Everett said warmly. He gestured to other photos. “We live right by the water. The one, that’s the view from my back porch. The ocean is never the same one day to the next. Even one hour to the next.”

Grace stared at the photo. “It’s lovely,” she said. “I would love to paint this.”

“You could come and stay with us,” he said swiftly. “Stay and paint as long as you like. Elizabeth would love to meet you.”

“Elizabeth’s your wife?” Grace asked.

“My daughter,” Everett corrected. “My wife died five years ago. She had cancer.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“It’s …” The photographer stopped, looked down at his shoes again. “I’m sorry, that invitation must have sounded really … I didn’t mean … ”

Grace smiled again, her bright, warm smile. “It’s okay. I didn’t take it that way.”

“Can I … get you a drink?” Everett finally managed to ask.

“It’s early for me, but I’d love a soda.”

He gestured to his cup. “Ginger ale?”

”Yes, please.”

Harold sat back from his monitors. After a moment, he made himself turn the sound down, though he continued to watch. Gregg Everett was inarticulate, awkward, clumsy. Guileless. But absolutely honest. He was intelligent, a gifted artist, an avid reader. A loving parent. A good neighbor. And, if Harold was honest, an attractive man.

Everett would be good for Grace.

Harold could watch them, he knew. Watch as their relationship progressed, if it did. Step in invisibly to help if it faltered. Support them, unseen, unheard. Guide them together. He thought about it as he watched them on the silent monitor. They continued to talk. Grace introduced him to some of the ladies from her group. Everett stayed close to her side, utterly unable to conceal his attraction to her.

And Grace, with her wonderfully unassuming nature, didn’t pick up the cues. But she would, sooner or later.

Probably.

He could watch over them. Help them. Or he could shut off the monitor and leave them alone.

Either Grace Hendricks would hit it off with Gregg Everett, fall in love, marry him, move to Cape Cod and live happily ever after, as she deserved to do …

… or else she would stay in New York and Harold would continue to look after her, as he had done since he left her …

He shook his head. Of course, there might well be some middle ground between those two extremes. All of his plans didn’t actually come to fruition, and certainly not all the way he’d intended. But that was his process, to set a goal, adjust to realities as needed, and come as close as possible to achieving it.

His goal was for Grace to be happy. His adjustment to reality was that _he_ could never be there with her, making her happy in person. Gregg Evertt was the revised plan. And if not him, someone else. Harold would learn from the failure of this relationship, make further revisions, and find someone more suitable.

It had taken him time to embrace this goal. Watching her come home from family Christmas, alone, had convinced him to act. Because the only thing harder than letting Grace Hendricks go was continuing to watch her go on alone.

                                                           x  x  x  x  x 

Maxine Angelis wasn’t about to let go of her lead.

She wasn’t one much for celebrity news, normally. She was more interested in political corruption, police misconduct, real stories with real meat to them. But this was Will Freakin’ _Ingram_. His billionaire father had been killed in a terrorist attack – the worst on US soil since 9/11 – and conspiracy theory continued to whisper that it had actually been a government attack aimed at the computer genius. The son had hardly been seen since. Word was that he was overseas with Doctors Without Borders, which was almost too do-goody to be believed. But the video she’d seen from the night before, Ingram Jr. and his girlfriend diving under an overturned car to rescue a pregnant woman and her child – that was too beautiful to pass up.

And talking to him face to face, even briefly – he was even more wonderfully, stupidly wholesome in person. He really was too good to be true. It didn’t hurt that he was easy on the eyes. In his scruffy way he was as handsome as his father had been.

Young Will Ingram was news sales gold.

And the young woman with him was equally attractive.

Maxine’s next mission was finding out who she was, and how close the two of them were.

She parked outside the restaurant the couple had disappeared into and filed her first story. Then she called her source at the police department. He had nothing for her. But her source at the hospital did.

Maxine shook her head. There were probably hundreds of people named ‘Carson’ in New York City. The odds that the young woman was related to _those_ Carsons was incredibly remote. Except, of course, that she was running around with Will Ingram, and he was a billionaire, and so the odds went up that his girlfriend came from money, too … 

And if she was from _that_ Carson family, this story was huge. Still sugary celebrity news, but triple-the-hits-on-the-site celebrity news. Whale-size news.

Maxine called her editor back. “I need some background quick,” she said.  

By the time she got it, her story had hit the web site and there were two other cars lurking outside the restaurant with her.

                                                           x  x  x  x  x 

Fusco was finishing up lunch at his desk when his cell rang. He growled, expecting it to be from a blocked number. He growled again when the ID came up with a Toledo, Ohio number. “Detective Fusco,” he said.

“I … um … hello?”

It was a woman, and a nervous one. “Hello?” he said warily.

“Hello. I, um … oh. I’m sorry, I … are you the detective who called about Red Geis? Um … Erci Geis? Detective Geis?”

“Yeah. Who’s this?”

“My name is … I’m sorry. My name is Cindy Summers. I’m a dispatcher with the Toledo PD.”

“Okay.” Fusco sat back in his chair, still puzzled. “What can I do for you?”

“Well, the captain said that, um, that Red was there, asking for some information. And I just … I’m sorry, this is probably way out of line, but … his mother just died, earlier this week, and now this sudden trip, I’m … that is, we’re all … just a little concerned about him.”

Lionel felt a little grin tug at the corners of his mouth. _She_ was worried about him, not _we_. “He seemed okay to me,” he said easily. “He said he was looking for an uncle, wanted to know if we could steer him in the right direction. I just wanted to make sure he was legit before I helped him out. You know.”

Carter stared at him. He shrugged.

“But he wasn’t … um … “

“He seemed fine,” Fusco repeated. 

 “I … oh. Well. Thank you, then.”

“You don’t mind my asking,” the detective asked quickly, “how come you don’t just call his cell?”

“I … um. I tried, but he didn’t answer. So I thought I’d just … I know, this is really odd. But under the circumstances …”

“I think it’s nice you got his back this way,” Fusco said. “I bet he’d be glad to know about it.”

The woman stopped talking for so long that he started to think she’d hung up on him. “Yeah. Maybe I’ll tell him some time.”

“You should.”

“Well … thank you, Detective.”

“Glad to help.” He put his phone away.

“What was that?” Carter asked, bemused.

“Not sure,” Fusco answered. “I think I just helped one of Mr. Grumpy’s people make a love connection.”

She made a face. “You better hope he doesn’t end up dead before he can connect, then.”

“Hey, I’m just Cupid here. Batman’s gonna have to do his half on his own.”

Carter grinned and went back to her report. “You as Cupid,” she snorted. “There’s a visual I didn’t need.”

And when she put it that way -- Fusco had to laugh, too.

                                                           x  x  x  x  x 

William Robinson was carry a tray piled with clean bowls from the kitchen. Reese could tell from across the room that the man was in pain. He hurried over and took the tray out of his hands. It was heavy. “Hello, William,” he said.

The older man looked surprised, then grateful. “John. Good to see you again.” He didn’t argue about the tray. He simply gestured to the table where it went. When John set it down, he started unloading the bowls into stacks. John helped.

“How’ve you been?”

“Can’t complain.” The man put in hand on his lower back and leaned, trying to loosen it.

“You shouldn’t load up the trays so much,” Reese chided gently.

“Yes, yes. And you? You look well.”

“I’m looking for someone. Again.”

Robinson smiled gently, drew him back from the table. “Thought you might be.

John brought out his phone and showed him a photo of Eric Geis.”Have you seen him?”

“Just this morning. He’s a detective. Not from around here, though. Got kind of a Midwest sound to him.”

“Toledo,” Reese confirmed. “You’re good.”

“Had some time to listen to people.”

“Was he looking for someone?”

“His uncle.” Robinson frowned. “Starts with a D, I think. David … no, Daniel. Daniel Geis.”

“Do you know him? The uncle?”

“I’ve seen him around. He’s hard to miss. Got the red hair, like the detective. Lot less of it, though. Not that I can talk.” He ran his hand over the top of his mostly-bald head.

Reese followed the man back to the kitchen. Robinson picked up another tray of freshly-washed bowls. John took it from him again, carried it out to the table. “He’s been around, then?”

“I’ve seen him,” the older man said. “But he wasn’t using that name. Calls himself Danny Cane, Danny King. Couple different things. He drinks. Got a nasty temper. And he sometimes runs some ladies.”

“Any idea why Geis was looking for him?”

“He said that his mother died,” Robinson said. “Said this man was his only relative now. He wanted to find him, see if he could help him out.” He considered for a long moment. “You know I try to walk with the Lord, John. I believe in forgiveness, redemption. But this man, Daniel? He is not ready to be redeemed.”

“Did you tell the detective that?”

“I did. Funny thing, he almost seemed to agree with me. He wasn’t surprised, anyhow. But he said he still needed to find him.”

John nodded thoughtfully. “Do you have any idea where Daniel might be?”

“None at all, I’m afraid,” Robinson answered.

“If you see either of them …”

“I still have your number.”

“Thank you.”

                                                           x  x  x  x  x 

It took Maxine Angelis most of an hour to track down the number. A friend of a friend, then a friend of his, then a friend of hers. But she got it. She was into the story now; she’d have worn the numbers off her phone to get this scoop.

And then, through a combination of half-truths and outright lies, she dialed the number and a young male voice said, “Carson residence.” He sounded incredibly nasal – congested, she realized.

“Hello,” she said sweetly. “My name is Maxine Angelis. I’m working on a story about Julie Carson, and I wondered if someone there could comment on her relationship with Will Ingram.”

The young person on the phone coughed wetly and then said, “Sorry, what?”

“Is Julie your aunt?” Maxine guessed.

“Yeah.”

“Do you know if she’s dating someone?”

“Yeah.”

“Have you met him?”

There was a man’s voice in the background. “Who is it?”

“Some lady,” the kid answered. He coughed again.

“Give me that.” There was a little shuffle, and then an older voice. “Who is this, please?”

“My name is Maxine Angelis. I’m a reporter with the New York Journal.”

There was a brief pause. “What did you tell her?” the man asked, aside.

“She asked about Aunt Julie.”

“What about her?”

“About that guy she’s dating.”

“Who, Ing—“ The man turned his attention back to her. “I’m sorry, we don’t have any comment on that subject.”

“So she is dating him?” Maxine pressed.

The phone went dead. When she called back, no one answered.

Which was, Maxine mused, an answer in itself, but not one she could go to press with. She knew from the call that Julie Carson was back in the country, in the city, presumably, and that she was dating someone. But she still wasn’t certain that the woman in the restaurant with Ingram was in fact the youngest Carson.

She sat back and considered her options. There weren’t many.

And then, as sometimes happened when she thought she’d worked a story to the end, a little miracle happened. Her phone rang.

The number was blocked. She answered it anyhow. “Maxine Angelis.”

“You asked about Julie Carson,” a woman said. She sounded older, formal, and her voice was hushed.

“Yes.”

“She is dating Will Ingram. She is living with him, in Manhattan. They plan to attend an event at the Carson family compound this weekend. Together.”

Maxine smiled toward the restaurant. “So it’s serious, then.”

“It’s very serious. We expect their engagement to be announced shortly.”

“Really. And what’s your name?”

“I think you have all you need, Miss Angelis,” the woman said frostily.

The called went dead.

“I think,” Angelis said to the dead air, “that you’re probably right.”

                                                           x  x  x  x  x 

Tonaro came into the restaurant as they were finishing their coffee. He leaned close and spoke quietly. “Miss Carson, Dr. Ingram, we have a security issue.”

“What kind of issue?” Julie asked.

“Paparrazi.”

“What, another reporter?” Will shook his head. They’d been an issue briefly around his father’s funeral, but other than that he’d never had to deal with them much. He didn’t get it.

“Not _one_ reporter,” Tonaro said. “Many. Thomas is bringing the car around back.”

Julie gestured for the check.

The guard stepped back against the wall, his hands clasped behind him.

“What do they want?” Will asked. “What are they all worked up about?”

“The car accident, I suppose,” Julie answered.

Tonaro cleared his throat discretely.

“What?” Julie asked.

“They asked about _you_. Specifically. By name.”

“Oh, hell,” she muttered.

Will looked at her. “That didn’t take long.”

“I suspect my mother.”

They paid the check quickly. Tonaro had them wait one more minute while he muttered into the wire on his wrist. Then they headed for the back exit. He stopped them again at the door. Then he said, “Please keep your heads down and go straight to the car.”

“Are you kidding me?” Will asked.

Tonaro looked at him. He was in full I-do-not-kid-around mode. He pushed the door open and herded the two of them toward the waiting car.

There was a roar of whirrs, a sound that Ingram couldn’t identify at first, just noise. A crowd of people. He almost stopped. Then he felt Julie’s hand on the small of his back, pushing him. He reached back for her hand, got his head down and moved. The whirring, he realized, was cameras clicking. Ahead, Thomas was holding the car door open with one hand, reaching for him with the other. People pressed in, got in front of him. Julie pushed again, with her body this time, and Will barreled through them. Tonaro, he trusted, was behind Julie. Certainly there was some force back there propelling them both forward.

He’d been in crowds before. He’d been in the middle of festivals, of markets, of riots. They’d never bothered him. But this was personal. These were people who wanted a piece of _him_. And of Julie. They were focused on them, and they were out of control.

He shifted his grip so that he had Julie’s wrist securely, and he dove for the car. He pulled her in on top of him. Thomas slammed the door.

A body hit the car, hard enough to rock it. And then several more. There were shouting faces, cameras, phones pressed against the glass. The car began to rock rhythmically as they pushed against it.

Tonaro opened the front passenger door and got in. Hands reached through the opening, grasping toward them like something out of a zombie movie. The bodyguard pushed them away, eased the door shut. The same process repeated on the other side as Thomas got in.

“What the _hell_?” Will said as the car finally inched forward.

The crowd still pressed against the windows. “Get your head down,” Julie said. She pulled him toward her, and they both leaned together at the center of the seat. Tonaro slipped out of his overcoat and spread it over them. The photographers began to ease away.

“We’re going to need some back-up,” Thomas muttered.

“Anything you need,” Julie said from under the coat. “Call ‘em in.”

“It will take a little time to get them on-site,” Tonaro answered. He brought his phone out.

The car finally reached the main street. Will and Julie sat up cautiously.

Another car bumped them from behind. More cameras.

“Go,” Julie said. “Just go.”

Thomas drove. “They’re still following us,” he said after a few blocks.

“Back to the loft?” Will asked.

“Do a drive-by,” Julie said. “They may already be there.”

“What do they _want_?” he asked again. “What the hell is going on?”

Julie handed Tonaro’s coat back over the seat to him, then sat back.” “I don’t know how to tell you, this, sweetie, but you’re really rich. And so am I.”

“That never made them interested in me before.”

“You were never this handsome before.”

“Maybe I just never had a beautiful girlfriend before.”

In the front seat, Thomas made a small noise that started as a grunt and turned into a small cough.

Will grinned. “You knew we were sappy when you took the job, Thomas.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You guys were really good back there,” Julie said. “Thank you.”

They both smiled, just a little, embarrassed. “Just doin’ our job, ma’am,” Tonaro said.

She didn’t bother to disguise her grunt.

“Hey,” Thomas protested, “you knew we were sappy when you hired us.”

**   
**

****


	8. Chapter 8

There was another mob – or maybe the same mob in a different location – in front of the loft. Thomas drove in a wide circle to the back, but there was no chance of getting into the garage without being seen. “Just keep driving,” Julie said.

They had, by then, picked up another car with two more Skydd bodyguards.

“We could head out of town,” Will suggested.

“The farm,” Julie agreed reluctantly, “is secure as hell.” It was a two hour drive to the Carson family complex, but it was very tightly secured. They didn’t have any luggage, but they could get or send for everything they needed there. They would be fine there. As long as they stayed on the complex. It was the most logical thing to do. “Damn it.”

“No,” Will said. “If we go there, we’re stuck there. And you don’t want to go. We’ll think of something else.”

His phone rang. He answered it without looking. “Hello?”

Julie grabbed for it, even as a familiar voice said, “Will?”

He leaned back, smiled at her reassuringly. “Hey, Uncle Harold, we really can’t talk right now …”

“I know,” Harold answered. “You’re on the news.”

“Oh, God.”

“And from what my contact at Skydd tells me, you need somewhere to go for a while.”

“That would be good,” Ingram admitted.

“Do you trust me?”

Will didn’t hesitate. “Of course.”

“Let me talk to your bodyguard.”

Will leaned forward and handed the phone to Tonaro.

“Uncle Harold has a plan?” Julie asked.

“Of course he does.”

“Of course he does.”

                                                           x  x  x  x  x 

Ingram almost balked when he heard that Uncle Harold’s brilliant plan called for them to leave the relative security of the towncar and get on the subway. “The _subway_?”  

“Good place to get lost,” Thomas said.

“Good place to get _trapped_ ,” Will countered.

He looked to Julie. She’d been a State Department operative, before her relationship with him got her fired. He trusted her knowledge about things like this. And her instincts. She twisted around in the back seat and scanned the area around them. Then she nodded. “Let’s go.”

All four of them hurried out of the car and down the stairs into the subway.

Will noted that the second set of bodyguards also abandoned their car and followed.

Even at mid-afternoon the crowd was pretty heavy. He took Julie’s arm, aware that the Skydd guys had paired off, pulled away from them a little. It made sense. A guy and a girl in jeans with four guys in suits around them drew attention. A guy and a girl in jeans, and two sets of businessmen in suits, all headed the same direction, did not.

They got on the train without incident. “Okay,” he asked the voice on the phone. “Now what?”

“Now relax,” Harold said, “and try to look normal.”

“I thought I _did_ look normal, until a little bit ago.”

“I’ll tell you when to get off the train.”

He sat back, put his arm around Julie. “I don’t get this,” he said.

“That reporter woman,” she answered. “Angelis.”

“I guess. But how did _this_ happen?” he gestured vaguely to the mob they’d left behind. “They never chased us like that before.”

“I’m telling you, my mother’s behind this.”

“You think your mother’s behind everything. Why would she do this?”

“Because if we’re all over the news together, obviously we’ll think we have to stay together. She probably hired a publicist.”

“We’re going to stay together anyhow,” Will soothed, “so it doesn’t make any difference.”

“You have no idea how manipulative she can be.”

“It doesn’t matter,” he said again. He kissed her, drew her close. “This is just more weirdness in a week that’s already been weird.”

“And it’s only Wednesday.”

They rode in silence for a while, unrecognized and unharrassed.

Will’s phone chirped. “Uncle Harold?”

His uncle chuckled. “So you were buying car seats and newborn clothes, were you?”

“Oh my God.”

“Get off at the next station,” Harold said. “But stay by the doors until you hear the wildcats. Then go north along the platform edge.”

“The … what?”

“I don’t know either. But trust me. Wildcats.”

He put his phone away.

“Next stop?” Julie asked.

“Yes. And the week just got weirder.”

They stood up and moved to the doors. Will looked both ways to make sure the guards were up on the plan; they were, of course. The train stopped. Will took Julie’s arm and stepped out onto the platform. “Now what?” she asked.

“Now we wait for the wildcats.”

“The _what_?”

“Told you it was weirder.”

At the center of the platform, a teenager in a red and white sweater jumped up on a box, held up a cardboard megaphone, and shouted, “What team?”

Around him, a dozen other teens shouted without hesitation, “Wildcats!”

“What team?” he shouted again.

This time twice as many teens responded. “Wildcats!”

“What team?”

“Wildcats!”

“Wildcats!” he shouted back. “Get’cher head in the game!”

And then there was horrible pop music blaring, and the teens were singing. Something about all being in this together. They also danced, in an obviously choreographed routine.

There were more of them every minute, moving to the center of the platform and joining the dance.

“Wildcats,” Julie grumbled.

“North,” Will said.

They moved. “Where are we going?”

“I don’t know. To the end of the platform.”

Before they got there, Julie said, “Ohhhh.”

Christine Fitzgerald was standing at the very end of the platform, against the wall. She was obviously waiting for them.

Thomas and Tonaro were ahead of them. Will got their attention, gestured to the woman. They moved off to the side a little, partly hiding her from the rest of the platform. She grinned easily. “Come with me if you want to live.”

“How long have you waited to say that?” Julie asked.

“A long-ass time. C’mon.”

“Where are we going?” Will asked.

She disappeared around corner where the wall and the platform met.

Thomas went after her. Tonaro waited until Will and Julie moved past him, then followed.

The ledge was narrow, only wide enough for them to walk one at a time. There was no railing between the walkway and the subway tracks. Will glanced back. Tonaro was there behind Julie. The other two – he needed to learn their names – were behind her.

“Where are we going?” he asked again.

Thomas stopped. Christine squeezed past him and unlocked a big steel door. It led to a tunnel. She let Thomas go first again. At the end of the tunnel she opened another door. It led to a basement.

“Oh, this is cool,” Julie said.

They got everybody into the basement and Christine locked the door. “Where are we?” Will asked.

“My place.”

“We’re at Chaos?”

“My new place,” she clarified. “It’s not finished yet, but it is secure.”

“Right, Uncle Harold said you bought a building.”

“We’d like to go up first,” one of the Skydd guys said.

“Sure,” Christine answered. “Who are you? Sorry, I know who you are, what’s your name?”

“Hofstetter, ma’am. This is Mickelson. Thomas. Tonaro.”

“Christine Fitzgerald. You can call me Scotty.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She smiled. “Or not. C’mon, I’ll show you around.” She led him and Thomas up the basement steps. The other two guards remained with Will and Julie in the basement, but only briefly. Then Thomas called them all up.

On the ground floor, they paused to look around. The space was empty except for support pillars. The hardwood floor had sawdust and footprints in places. But light flooded in from the windows on all sides. Will could see the potential immediately. “This is nice,” he said. “What’s it going to be?”

“Offices of some kind,” Christine answered. “Haven’t sorted that out yet.”

“I’m not crazy about all the windows,” Julie said.

“Ballistic glass and one-way,” Thomas assured her.

She relaxed visibly.

Thomas and Mickelson stayed on the ground floor. Tonaro followed them onto the little elevator and they went up to the top floor. There was a small lobby there, and a big steel door with an electronic lock. Hofstetter was holding the door open. “All clear,” he announced. He moved into the lobby with Tonaro.

“You can come in,” Christine offered. “Have some coffee or something.”

“Thank you, ma’am. Maybe later.”

“Harold Wren with be here shortly, probably with a guest.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Scotty.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She shook her head and led Will and Julie into the apartment.

The doorway led into a wide hallway. Beyond, through an arch, was an eat-in kitchen. The cabinets were in, and the appliances, but the floor was still covered with plywood. “Coffee maker,” Christine said, pointing. “Cups up above.” She moved down the hall, past two unfinished rooms that were likely to be bedrooms and a bathroom that looked fully functional. At the front of the apartment was a large living room, with hardwood floors and a beautiful stone fireplace, empty. It was flanked by floor-to-ceiling bookcases. There was a battered couch there, two folding chairs, and a card table. “It is not fancy,” she said, not really an apology, “but you’re welcome to crash here. Harold’s on his way, I think with professional help.”

“What kind of help?” Julie asked.

“Don’t know. Didn’t ask.” She gestured to the side of the room, where two double doors stood open to a room completely lined with bookshelves and cabinets. “You know I love you, right? I don’t mean to blow you off, but I am in the middle of something _really_ important. So make yourselves as at home as you can and yell if you need anything.”

She went in to the side room and sat down in another folding chair next to a built-in desk where she had her laptop.

Will followed her to the doorway, curious. As he’d expected, the living room fireplace opened through to this room, with the same stone on the hearth. “This place is great.”

“It will be,” she replied absently, intent on the computer.

“What’s on the second floor?”

“Nothing yet. Probably turn it into two apartments.”

“Where did you get this woodwork?” Julie asked. “It’s gorgeous.”

“Architectural salvage.”

She had still not looked up from the computer. “Can we help?” Julie asked quietly.

Christine did look up then. “No. Thanks. And I’m really sorry. Give me half an hour and you can have my complete attention, I promise.”

“You gave us the flash mob when we needed it,” Will answered. “Do whatever you need to do.” He started out of the room. “What was that, anyhow? That they were singing?”

Christine smirked. “High School Musical. Don’t tell Disney, they’ll sue our asses off. But they were the group I had handy.”

“Will you teach me how to organize a flash mob?” Julie asked. “It seems like it might be a useful talent.”

The hacker blinked.

“Later,” Julie said quickly. “C’mon.” She took Will’s arm and dragged him back to the living room.

They drifted around a bit, looking at the view from the many windows. There was no sign of the camera mob. Mickelson came out and walked across the street below, tense and watchful.  He didn’t seem to see anything that bothered him.

“Ballistic glass,” Julie said quietly, touching the window. “That’s interesting.”

Will ran his hand over the elaborately carved woodwork. The construction was all new; the drywall had been taped but not painted. But the old woodwork promised that when it was done, it would look wonderfully old and civilized. “I really like this place.”

“I really like the tunnels,” Julie answered. “And her choice of doors.”

“You approve of her security,” he said.

“I do. Very much. A little confused about why she needs it, but I approve.”

They wandered back down the hall, glancing in the bedrooms and the bath. “That’s weird,” Julie said. “There must be a big empty room on the other side of this wall. _Big._ Like two-thirds of this floor.”

“Maybe she hasn’t decided what to do with it,” Will suggested. “You could put another small apartment there.”

“Or a bowling alley,” Julie countered.

They went back to the kitchen and made coffee. From those windows, they could see a bare spot of land at the back of the building. It was muddy from construction vehicles, but even now grass was sprouting valiantly around the edges. Little marker stakes indicated that a patios was planned up against the building. “Oh, look,” Will said, “a yard.” They both grinned, thinking about the whirligig they’d bought earlier in the hope that there would be a yard here.

“Nice,” Julie agreed. “I like this place.”

“We need a place like this. It feels right.” They moved back to the living room and flopped on the couch. “What the hell are we going to do, Jules?”

She shook her head. “Camp out here, if we have to. I swear, Will, I’d rather sleep on this couch than go to my parents’ place right now. I know my mother engineered all of this.”

“So we’ll feel like we have to stay together.”

“Yes.”

“Even though she hasn’t even met me.”

“It doesn’t matter. I told you. Name and money, that’s all she cares about. Whether she likes you is insignificant. Hell, whether _I_ like you is insignificant.”

“You’re letting her freak you out, Jules.”

“We were just attacked by a mob, Will. We had to be rescued by a Disney sing-along.”

He sat back. “Is this really about Paul?” he asked quietly.

Julie stared at him. Then she stood up and went to the window. “Probably,” she said bitterly.

Paul Essex, Will knew, had been Julie’s first love. He was in the military, and they’d met while she was tutoring him in languages before he deployed. Her parents, particularly her mother, had not approved of Paul. Julie married him anyhow.

Will had never gotten the whole story about what happened afterward, only that it was ugly and cruel and had ended with Julie being cut off from her grandfather’s trust fund. She didn’t care about that; she had a job with that State Department that she loved, and a husband that she loved more. But the fight had been vicious, and only her grandmother’s intervention had kept it from being worse.

And then Paul had died overseas, and Julie’s beloved grandmother had died at home the next day. Julie had come back for the funeral, the gone back to Europe and worked. Will guessed that for many years she’d largely pretended she was alone in the world.

Marrying him now, with his name and his money, was giving her mother exactly what the woman had always wanted for Julie – and for herself. All the approval and affection that had been denied to Paul would be heaped on him. And all the old resentments had been dredged up because of it.

“We could wait,” Will offered.

Julie turned. “For what?”

“To get married. Hell, we _never_ have to get married, I don’t care. And I don’t have to go meet them. Whatever you want, Jules. It’s _you_ that I’m in love with and _you_ I want to be with. Not them. So tell me what you need.”

Julie came back to the couch and sat down beside him. She put her coffee cup on one of the folding chairs, then took his and did the same. Then she pulled his arms around her. “You make it really hard to stay mad at you, you know that, Ingram?”

He nuzzled against her cheek. “Yeah, I know.”

“I think it’s that grin. And your voice. It lets you get away with anything.”

“Yeah,” he said again. “I know.”

She sighed. “We’ll figure this out. And I’ll try to quit bitching about her, I promise. Just …” she gestured toward the windows. “All we did was help a woman and a child, and now we have this mess.”

“No good deed,” Will agreed.

Julie settled back against him. “Damn straight.”

 

 

 


	9. Chapter 9

“You had to be heroes, didn’t you?” Zoe asked, watching the replay of the video from the accident on her laptop.

“They needed help,” Julie answered stiffly.

Harold looked between them with mild concern. Julie had disliked Zoe Morgan the minute she came through the door. It wasn’t, he guessed, the fixer’s carefully coiffed hair, or the tight dress or the too-high-for-daylight heels she wore. It was, rather, that Julie recognized Zoe’s opportunistic nature at a glance. Miss Morgan had been looking to get in with Will Ingram and Julie Carson since she’d first heard they were a couple. She saw advantages there, influence and information to be gleaned, power to be wielded. Money to be made. And she made no attempt to hide the reason for her interest.

To her credit, Zoe didn’t seem to care if the young heiress liked her. She was likely accustomed to being disliked by other woman.

Zoe re-ran the video. “I don’t know how they identified you from this tape.”

“The hospital called me,” Harold explained. “They had Will’s wallet and phone, from his coat pockets.”

“So Angelis has a source at the hospital.” She nodded thoughtfully. “That’s probably how they got your name, too.” She nodded toward Julie. “The shopping trip didn’t help.”

“We bought a car seat for Bella and a t-shirt for the new baby,” Will said. “We didn’t think it was a big deal.”

“Oh, it was very generous of you,” Zoe said dryly. “Unfortunately, it’s just fuel for the rumor fire.” She looked at Julie again. “You’re not pregnant, are you?”

“Not yet.”

A little smile teased around the fixer’s mouth. “Of course, denying it won’t do any good in the short run.”

“Can you help?” Will asked.

Zoe smiled warmly at him. “Of course I can help. It’s what I do.” She switched to other news feeds, but with the volume off. “I can shut down most of the major networks, or at least limit them to running a short H.I. tonight and then dropping it.”

“H.I.?”      

“Human interest. Two minutes, right before the last break. They have to cover it, but it’ll be done and gone. Some of the other paparazzi I can call off.” She frowned at the screen. “This Angelis woman? She’s going to be a problem. She thinks she has some kind of news story here. But I can talk to her editor. Maybe convince him otherwise.” Zoe considered. “And … she’s more of a _real_ news reporter anyhow. Maybe we can throw her a juicy bone, a political scandal to chew on. I can line something up.” She glanced at Will again. “It won’t be cheap.”

“I don’t …”

“We’re good for it,” Julie interrupted.

The fixer looked her up and down. “I’m sure you are.”

“Just make them go away,” Will pleaded.

“I’ll make some calls,” Zoe agreed. “The next thing is, we need to get all this footage off the internet.” She glanced at Harold.

“Scotty’s been taking care of that so far,” Julie said.

They turned. The hacker was in the next room, through an open doorway. She was leaning over her laptop, intently focused. She’d looked up and said hello when they came in, nothing more. She and Zoe had obviously met before, which didn’t surprise Harold. Her talents were impressive, and exactly the sort of thing Zoe Morgan was likely to need on a regular basis.

“So you in?” Zoe called to her.

Christine looked up blankly. “What?”

“We need you to get these two off the internet.”

“Sure,” she answered vaguely. “No problem. In a bit.” Her attention turned back to the laptop.

“Sooner is better than later,” Zoe said. “And _now_ would be best of all.”

Christine didn’t answer.

Finch watched the stiffness creep into Zoe Morgan’s elegant neck. She obviously wasn’t used to being ignored by her subcontractors. And, too, she was trying to impress Will and Julie with how much influence she could command on the social world. Christine’s behavior was undermining her efforts.

“She said she was in the middle of something important,” Will offered quietly.

“This is more important,” the fixer insisted. “Yo, Scotty. Come on, we need you.”

“Not now.” Christine shook her head without looking up. “Make a list, I’ll get to it in an hour.”

_Just let it go_ , Harold urged mentally. Zoe Morgan was normally an excellent judge of people and situations, but she’d completely overlooked the fact that she was meeting Will and Julie in Christine’s unfinished apartment, that Christine had gotten to them first because Harold had _called_ her first. A great many people made the mistake of underestimating Christine Fitzgerald. It was easy to do: she intentionally presented herself as young and soft, easy-going and sweet. She rarely pushed to claim higher status. She simply didn’t care about it, and like Harold himself, she preferred to be in the background and ignored. But he wouldn’t have thought that Zoe Morgan would be unobservant enough to make that mistake.

On a good day, Christine could be nothing but generous and helpful. On this day, she had something more important to do. Of course Zoe didn’t know what that something was, Finch thought, but she ought to be picking up the cues better. _Just because she lets you win doesn’t mean you can beat her._

And perhaps Zoe _was_ aware, but she was too intent on impressing her new clients to heed the non-verbal warnings. “Did you forget your OCD meds this morning or what?” she asked bitingly.

There was another silence. Then Christine looked up. “What?” She clearly hadn’t heard the comment.

“What are you working on that’s so damn important?” Zoe demanded.

Christine straightened. “I’m using a fake virtual identity to buy naked pictures of a ten year-old girl from her mother’s boyfriend,” she said bluntly.

“Why?” Will asked, startled.

“So I can get prove he’s a pedophile.” Her eyes went back to the screen before she was done speaking.

Zoe shot Harold a questioning look, one eyebrow raised as high as it could go. He nodded, just once.

“Shouldn’t the police be handling that?” she asked. She was caught off-guard, but she made the adjustment instantly, smoothly. From her tone, she accepted that she’d deserved the rebuff. Grudgingly.

“They’re on stand-by,” the hacker answered without looking up. “But school gets out in thirty-five minutes, and I want him in custody by then. Whatever you need from me, it will wait that long.”

“It will,” Julie said firmly.

“I’m sorry we bothered you,” Will added.

Christine waved them off. “Almost done. Negotiating payment terms.”

 Zoe looked to Harold. “Does she do this a lot?” she asked quietly.

“She doesn’t talk about it much,” he answered carefully, “but yes, I believe so.”

She gave him another look, an unspoken, _Thanks for the heads-up, Harold_. He merely shrugged. She should have seen the signs.

“That’s a hell of a hobby,” Julie said. “Might explain the windows.”

“Hmmm,” Harold said noncommittally.

“Alright,” Zoe said, regrouping. “We can handle the short-term. Get the mob down to a handful. Unless you do something else all heroic, then all bets are off.” She smiled without warmth. “I can give you some tips, turn down the heat for now.”

“Like what?” Will asked.

She scrolled through her laptop, opened a new site and pointed. “Kissing. Right now, the Enquirer will pay fifty grand for a picture of the two of you lip-locked. That’s a lot of money, and it will attract a lot of the bottom feeders.”

“So how do we stop that?” Julie asked. “Restraining order, what?”

“You kiss,” Zoe said simply. “A lot. All the time. Everywhere you see a camera. It’s simple supply and demand. When every tourist with a cell phone can post a kiss pic on Twitter, the price drops to nothing. So the leaches have no motivation.”

“I … guess we could do that,” Will said with mock reluctance.

Zoe rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I figured that wouldn’t be a problem. I’ll write you up an official statement, wishing the accident victims well, specifically mentioning the expectant mother. That will take some of the teeth out of the pregnancy rumor.” She nodded to herself. “Now, what about the engagement?”

The young couple shared a look. “Um …” Julie said.

Will turned. “Uncle Harold, we have something to tell you.”

He smiled warmly, unsurprised. “Congratulations.” Then he moved to kiss each of them.

“Do the families know?” Zoe asked. 

“Not yet.” Will shrugged. “Well, my mom knows it’s in the works. I haven’t even met her family yet.”

“We can stall a little. But long-term, you need to do some serious image management, and that announcement should be a part of it.”

“Can’t we just leave the country?” Will suggested.

“Sure, that would work, if you don’t plan on coming back.”

“Assuming we don’t want to become ex-pats,” Julie asked, “what do you suggest?”

“You pretty much have two choices,” the fixer said. “One, you can muscle up your security and cling to every ounce of privacy you have. That means you never go out alone, ever. No unsecured locations, no unscreened crowds. It’s very safe, but it’s very restrictive.”

“What’s the second choice?”

“Be everywhere and bore them to death.”

In the next room, Christine sat back from the computer and stared at the screen. Harold moved quietly to the doorway, still half-listening to Zoe. “Can I help?” he offered, very quietly.

She shook her head. “I’ve got him.”

“Explain,” Julie said to Zoe.

“Talk to all of the reporters, any time you see them. Seek them out. Go on afternoon talk shows. Let them take your picture. Go to social events. Premiers, parties, openings. Be seen. Be everywhere. Until you’re not special anymore.”

“What, like the Kardasians?” Will asked.

“Exactly like that.” Zoe reconsidered. “Okay, not exactly like that, but close. Get out there. Pretend you like it. Make your engagement a big deal. Make your wedding a bigger deal. Embrace the celebrity.”

“That sounds awful,” Julie said.

“Your mother would love it,” Will teased lightly.

“Oh, shut up. They won’t be critiquing _your_ fashion choices.” She looked to Zoe. “I don’t do fashion.”

“Maybe Harold could help you.” She looked toward him where he hovered in the doorway. “Everything okay with the pedophile?”

Christine groaned. “He’ll accept payment through Paypal.”

“Doesn’t that make things simpler?” Will asked.

“It means he’s a rank amateur,” Julie said. “That’s not good.” She stood up and moved to Harold’s side. “You got him?”

“Soon as he accepts the payment,” Christine said tightly.

“Amateurs are bad?” Will asked. He joined her in the doorway, and so did Zoe.

“They do stupid things,” Zoe volunteered.

“They’re unpredictable and dangerous,” Julie confirmed.

“That’s why I want him picked up before she gets out of school.” Christine picked up her cell phone and held it, ready to dial. She glanced up. “I don’t usually do this with an audience.”

“You’re doing fine,” Harold assured her.

“But we can go, if you want,” Will added.

She shrugged. “I’m done, except for dropping the dime.” She looked at the screen again, hit the refresh button twice. “C’mon, c’mon.”

“How do you even find these people?” Zoe asked.

“Sometimes I just fish for them,” Christine answered. “This one … one of her classmates came to me.” She glanced at Harold. He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to take from that look. She looked at the screen, then back at them. “Changed my mind. Go away. He won’t cash out any faster with you all standing there.”

They drifted back to the living room, but remained standing.

“What you really need,” Zoe said, dragging herself back to the subject at hand, “is a cause.”

“A cause?” Will asked.

“A cause.  Clean water, global warming. Any cause will do, as long as it’s not too controversial. I’d stay away from abortion and gun control, either side. But health care is good; you’re with Doctors Without Borders, so that would be a logical fit. Cancer research. Land mine removal. It doesn’t matter what. Just pick one and talk about it. A lot. All the time. And raise money for it when you can. People get bored faster when you’re always asking them for money.”

“A cause,” Julie repeated.

“Bono,” Zoe said. “Al Gore. Just pick something.” She held a hand up. “But make sure it’s something you really believe in, something you want to be talking about for the next ten or twenty years. Because you’ll be stuck with it.”

Will shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“We’d have to think about it,” Julie agreed.

“Let me know what you come up with.”

From the other room, Christine said, “ _Yes_!” to herself.  Then they heard her on the phone. “Sherry? I got him. Pick him up. I’m sending the file now.” There was a brief pause. “Let me know, okay?”

She typed a bit more, then pushed the computer back, stood up and stretched. She made another phone call, which evidently went straight to voice mail, said, “Hey, we need to talk, this afternoon. Soon. I’ll buy you cake. Call me.” Then she clicked her phone off and joined them in the living room.

“Don’t they need a warrant?” Julie asked.

“Imminent danger,” Christine answered. “They can arrest on suspicion, get the warrant after. It won’t be a problem.”

“You do this a lot, don’t you?”

“I do,” she admitted. “But this one – I really wanted this one.” She considered, then told them. “He told the girl that if she told anybody, he’d post her pictures on her school’s Facebook page and everybody would know she was, and I quote, a slut.”

“Bastard,” Zoe said.

“Yeah.” Christine rolled her neck, then her shoulders. “So. I’m taking things off the internet?”

Zoe filled her in quickly on what they needed. She nodded. “Not a problem. I’ll get on it.”

“It all seems sort of stupid,” Will said thoughtfully. “I mean, this whole press thing, it seems kind of trivial compared to what that little girl’s dealing with.”

Christine’s phone chirped and she glanced at the screen. “They got him,” she said with grim satisfaction. “Not the partner yet, but him.”

“Will he give up the partner?” Julie asked.

“If he hasn’t already.” Christine looked at Will. “And it’s not trivial. It all connects.”

“How do you figure?”

“The press is after you two because you saved a woman and her child last night. If we get the press to go away, then next time you have a chance to save someone you won’t have to kick reporters out of the way to do it.”

Will considered. “I’m pretty sure that was bullshit.”

“I’ve had a rough day, Will. That’s the best I can come up with.”

“Pallet cleanser?” Harold suggested. “Something pleasant to do after dealing with an internet predator?”

“Oh, I like that one,” Christine agreed. He could almost see the tension draining out of the young woman. She gestured to Zoe’s computer. “Let’s have a look.”

She got her own computer, and they sat down together and shredded digital records of the rescue and everything that had happened since. Julie and Will called Olivia and briefly filled her in on the situation. Then they pulled folding chairs over and helped find places their images might appear.

Harold drifted to the front windows, listening absently. He spotted one of the private security men across the street, and after some looking found another on a rooftop. They couldn’t see him, he knew, through Christine’s windows. But they knew that only allies had entered the building. The bodyguards from Skydd were very nearly the best money could buy, and certainly the best money could buy _openly_.

He felt notably apprehensive.

He examined the circumstances methodically. Will and Julie were here, safe, well-protected, and well-advised. Christine had taken some risks that he wasn’t entirely comfortable with, but her quarry had just been arrested. Red Geis remained at large, and they still hadn’t determined his exact purpose for being in New York, but Reese was following him, keeping him under surveillance and out of trouble. There had been no voice in his ear telling him that situation had changed.

Christine’s new apartment was coming along more slowly than he would have liked, but construction was definitely progressing. He liked the solid feel that the old salvaged woodwork gave the place. He liked the security measures. He liked that she was already working here; it seemed like a good indication that she would, eventually, move out of the apartment over Chaos, where she could look out the window and see the precise spot where her father had died in front of her. 

Everything was as it should be.

Still, there was something not right.

He turned back to look at the little gathering.

Harold’s nephew. His lovely, intelligent fiancée, who knew both Harold and Reese in an entirely different context. Zoe Morgan, also lovely and intelligent, and who also knew far more about him and John than she should. And Christine Fitzgerald, who knew almost everything. They each came from different parts of his carefully segregated life, and in times past Harold would have struggled mightily to keep them from ever meeting. Now it seemed not only impossible to keep them separated, but also unwise. Harold had brought them together because they could help each other.

If the time ever came when they compared notes …

They wouldn’t, though. They each, in their own way and for their own reasons, trusted Harold completely. They would keep his secrets from the others.

He had lied to all of them. And they had believed him.

Harold had the notion that he should feel worse about that. But as he watched the pieces mesh so firmly together, he couldn’t help but feel satisfaction where he likely should have felt shame.

                                                           x  x  x  x  x 

The last known address for Daniel Geis had been a bust, but John Reese had one advantage that his quarry did not: a contact inside the police department. He’d called Fusco and gotten addresses of the old man’s known associates, particularly the prostitutes he ran. Red Geis had probably had to work street sources to get the same information. At any rate, Reese got to the residential hotel just in time to see Geis was through the front door. 

John decided to go in through the back.

He moved down the hallway toward the front desk. He’d seen worse places, he thought, and smelled worse places, too. Of course, those had all been in third-world countries. He’d looked at some places like this when he was homeless, and he’d decided that living on a blanket in an abandoned warehouse was preferable.

He stopped just behind a thin wall that separated the lobby from the hallway. Beyond, at the desk, he could hear Red Geis. The detective was perfectly straightforward with the woman at the desk, and from the sound of it, not stingy with his bribes.

John took the opportunity to finally clone Geis’ phone.

Yes, the woman said, she recognized the man in the photo. Yes, his name was Danny, but not Geis. Danny King, she thought, or Danny Cane. He didn’t live there, but sometimes he visited some of the guests. Some of Geis’ money changed hands, and she gave up their names: Mae and Juney. Room 215. Geis asked if they were hookers. The woman said she didn’t know. Reese imagined there was a wink involved there, or at least a knowing look.

She didn’t let Geis stay, she said. He got drunk and then he got violent. She didn’t need trouble like him. But he came by to pick up the ladies and take them out, a couple times a week.

“When was the last time you saw them?” Geis askd.

“Mae and Juney? Yesterday. And Danny, too. He came and picked them up.” The woman coughed harshly. “They went up to Atlantic City. One of those bus tours, you now? They won’t be back until tomorrow.”

“Oh,” Geis answered.

“Either they’ll win a fortune at the tables and move to Florida to live in the sun, or they’ll pick up pocket change blowing the old men on the bus on the way back.”

Reese had to admire the lack of emotion that Geis answered with. “Well, I guess I’ll stop by tomorrow then.”

“Bus gets in around noon,” she said.

“Thank you.”

Reese waited until he heard the front door open and close. Then he eased around the corner and looked.

The detective was standing on the front stoop, looking around. To an untrained eye he was simply surveying the neighborhood. To Reese, it was obvious that he was looking for a place to set up a stake-out.

John tapped his earpiece. “Finch? We’re in the right place.”

                                                           x  x  x  x  x 

“You haven’t said one word,” Fusco said, “and I already don’t like this.”

Christine nodded solemnly. “I ordered carrot cake for you.”

Lionel sat down on the stool next to her and looked around the diner. It was getting late in the afternoon. The place was half-way busy, people ducking out of work to grab a bite on their way home or before they went in for the evening shift. Either way, they were chugging coffee like they’d been stranded in some hellish decaffeinated desert.

The waitress brought cake, carrot with cream cheese frosting for him, chocolate on chocolate for the woman. She brought coffee, too. It wasn’t bad. Fusco took a bite of his cake. It wasn’t bad, either. Not like his grandma used to make, but not as bad as some he’d tried.

“Okay,” he said, after a second bite. “Let’s have it.”

Fitzgerald looked nervous, which set the detective on edge. And she’d bought him cake. Whatever she was about to tell him, he was absolutely _certain_ now that he wasn’t going to like it.

“Did you ever hear Lee talk about a girl named Marisa Finley?” she finally said.

Fusco turned to face her squarely. “Whoa. This is about _Lee_?” His level of not liking jumped through the roof.

“He’s fine,” Christine said firmly. “Lee’s not in any danger. He never was. I promise.”

“You just put _Lee_ and _danger_ in the same sentence,” Fusco barked. “Out with it, right now.”

Heads turned. Fusco ignored them.

Christine, for once, did what she was told. She kept her voice down, but she talked fast. “Lee has a classmate named Marisa Finley. A while back she borrowed his laptop after school and was looking for pornographic photos on the web with it. That’s when Zelda busted him the first time.”

Lionel nodded slowly. This was not about dirty pictures. Either the kid’s porn searches had escalated a whole lot, or else …

“She asked him yesterday if she could use the computer again. He told her no, because he knew he’d get busted. And she cried at him. The pictures Marisa was looking for were of someone who looked like her. _Exactly_ like her, actually.”

He got it. He wished he didn’t, but he absolutely did. “Some creep’s making this kid pose naked. And then what, posting the pictures for other sickos to see?”

“Selling them, actually. And for an extra hundred dollars he’ll make her do custom poses. Also, the creep in question is her mother’s boyfriend.” She put her hand up before Fusco could speak. “He’s in jail already. They’re still looking for his co-creep, but the boyfriend is locked up and Marisa’s safe. This is all done. Everything’s taken care of.”

“And where’s Lee?”

Christine shrugged. “On his way home from school, as far as I know.”

Fusco took a deep breath, grabbing on to his last shred of patience. “Where is Lee in this story of yours?” he clarified. “How the hell did you find out about it? And why am I just hearing it now?”

Christine leaned back a little. “I got you cake,” she said in a small voice.

“Ah, shit.” The rest of the story Fusco didn’t like, but it was a cop thing. This part, he knew, he wasn’t going to like in a way that was deeply personal.

“Lee came to see me this morning, before school.”

“What, at Chaos?”

“Yeah.”

“By himself?”

“Yeah.”

“And you didn’t think you should call me about that?”

“No, I definitely _did_ think I should call you about that,” she protested. “But once I heard his story … I told him I’d help him. And Marisa. And I told him that I was going to tell you, or help him tell you. So … I am.”

“But you didn’t think you should call me this morning, when this was going down?”

Heads turned again.

Christine flinched. “Lee didn’t want to tell you until he was sure there was something to it. That Marisa wasn‘t just making stuff up.”

“ _Why_?” Fusco demanded. “Why would he tell you and not me?”

“Because his school health class taught him that as a cop you’re a required reporter.”

“I’m a … are you kidding me? _That’s_ why he didn’t tell me?”

“And you told him,” Christine added carefully, “that if he got in a jam and he didn’t think he could talk to you about it … “

“Yeah, yeah. Shut up.” Fusco ran his hand over his face. “You aren’t even fucking kidding about this, are you?”

“Not really something I would fucking kid about, no.”

The detective took a deep breath and blew it out. Then he did it again. It didn’t help much. “How did he even … why didn’t the school call when he didn’t show up?”

Christine cleared her throat delicately. “They apparently got an e-mail from his mother saying that he had a dentist appointment and she’d drop him off after.”

“Oh, _did_ they?”

“Yep. And then he just got on the right bus and went to Chaos.” She smiled tightly. “He’s a bright kid, Lionel.”

“Oh, yeah. He’s a regular fucking genius. I suppose he learned that trick from you.”

“Not to my knowledge. Anyhow, he wasn’t wrong about the girl.” She shifted a little. “The creep told her if she told anyone, he’d post the pictures on her school’s Facebook page and everyone would know about it.”

Fusco worked his jaw a little. That didn’t help much either. “Think if I went to the 15th, LaBlanca’d let me have a little time alone with him?”

“It’s a possibility,” Christine allowed. She let the silence grow for a minute, gave him space to think. “He did the right thing, Lionel. Maybe not in the right way, but at least he told _somebody_. I get that you’re mad. I don’t blame you. And I’m really sorry. But … be mad at me, and get Lee some damn counseling.”

He turned his head to look at her again. “You think he needs counseling.”

“His friend was molested and exploited by a pedophile. I don’t think he’s old enough to sort out that shitburger all by himself.”

“What about the girl?”

“Oh, Marisa too. Absolutely. I’ve got LaBlanca working on that end.”

Fusco sighed. “What the shit am I supposed to tell his mother?”

“What I just said. I’d leave the rest of it out. About his coming to Chaos and all.”

“Yeah, you think?” he asked sardonically. “She’ll fucking kill me if she finds out.”

“And Lee doesn’t need the added stress of you two fighting over it.”

“Jesus Christ.”

“I’m sorry, Lionel.”

He shook his head. “Damn it, Chrissy, how could you _not call me_? I get Lee, he doesn’t know, but _you_? I’ve broken rules up, down and sideways for you. If you told me not to report it I would have kept my mouth shut. But he’s _my_ kid. _My kid_. I thought you trusted me. I get why Lee doesn’t, all the shit his mother tells him about me, but _you_ …”

“This isn’t about my not trusting you. It’s about Lee trusting me.”

“Yeah, but he trusts you because I told him he should, because _I_ thought I could trust you. Apparently I was completely wrong about that.”

“What did you want me to do, Lionel? What would you have done?”

“I would have called you,” he said firmly. “I would have remembered that it was _your_ kid, not mine, and I would have called you.”

Christine toyed with her fork, cut off a little corner of her cake, then put it down. “I’m sorry,” she said again.

Fusco pushed his own plate away. “Damn it.”

Her phone rang. She jumped at the sound, then ignored it. It kept ringing.

“You should answer that,” Fusco finally said. “That’s probably Mr. Kneecaps.”

“Uh-uh. He’s got nothing to do with this. This is you and me.”

Fusco smirked at her. “You really think so? Let me clue you in, little girl. Everything you do now, he’s a part of.”

“I’m sure he likes to think so.”

The phone stopped, then rang again. Christine swore under her breath, then answered it. “What?”

Fusco thought the voice sounded like a woman’s, or maybe a girl’s.

“Calm down,” Christine said. She scrambled to her feet, slapped a bill down on the counter. “Where are you, sweetie?” The reply was louder, higher. “Okay, okay. I’ll be there in ten minutes. Less. Just hang on. I’ll be right there. Just hang on.” She snapped the phone off. “I gotta go.”

“That the girl?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll drive.” He stood, took her arm, herded her out the door.

Heads turned again as they hurried out. Fusco didn’t give a rat’s ass.

 

 


	10. Chapter 10

Mara grabbed Taylor’s arm while he was waiting for the bus. “We gotta talk.”

“Okay.”

“Not here. If Tia sees us she’ll kill me.”

The bus pulled up. Mara got on, even though it wasn’t her bus. The bus driver didn’t care. She shoved down the aisle, kicked a freshman out of a seat, and pulled Taylor in with her. “This is serious.”

“I can tell.” He squeezed his backpack onto his lap. “What’s up with Tia?”

“If she finds out I told you, she will totally kill me. For reals.” Mara went quiet until the bus left the front of the school. “You know she got with Damon, right?”

“Yeah, I heard.” Everybody’d heard. Taylor got dumped and three days later she was with the football player. “So what?”

“So … things aren’t good.”

Taylor kept his face as neutral as he could. If Mara was telling him Tia and Damon were breaking up already, then he might have another shot. He wasn’t sure he wanted another shot. He hadn’t thought he’d ever have another chance with Tia, so he hadn’t let himself think about whether he wanted one. He’d been too busy being miserable.

If he was still this miserable weeks after their break-up, he had his answer right there. “Not good how?”

Mara looked out the bus window. Then she looked around. It was crowded; anyone could be listening in. She leaned very close to Taylor’s ear. Then she put her hand over his mouth. “She might be knocked up.”

The hand had been a good precaution. Even muffled, Taylor’s “ _What?”_ was loud enough to make people turn around.

“Shhhhhhh!” Mara said. “Shit, Taylor, get a grip.”

She kept her hand there until he nodded that he was calm. Even then, he had to take a couple deep breaths. “Are you sure?”

“Too soon to be sure.”

“But she must be pretty sure. To be crying all the time.”

“Uh-huh.”

Taylor sat back and stared at the seat in front of him. “Shit.”

“Yeah.”

“She was gonna go to college.”

“Yeah.”

“Shit.” Taylor tried to think. Nothing very helpful came through. “Is Damon gonna …”

“Pfffft,” Mara answered. “That asshole?”

“Has she told him?”

“No. And I bet the minute she does he’ll be gone like a fart in a hurricane.”

“Shit,” Taylor said again. It seemed to be the most useful word at the moment.

After a minute, Mara said, “I thought you’d want to know.”

“Yeah.” Taylor nodded. “Yeah, thanks.”

“But you can’t tell Tia I told her.”

“No. I won’t.”

They rode the rest of the way in silence.

                                                           x  x  x  x  x 

The 15th Precinct’s squad room was bigger than the 8th’s. At the side there was a big wide staircase that went up to the holding cells and down to CCU. There were a lot of people milling around, cops in uniform coming and going at shift change, but also a lot of plainclothes and support staff, some cons, some witnesses, some lawyers, at least three bail bondsmen. The place was busy. It made Fusco uneasy.

Sherry LaBlanca sat on a wooden bench outside the interrogation room, with a small girl beside her.

Fusco recognized the girl. He’d seen her at Lee’s school, at the open house and in the holiday concert. She was pretty. Small for her age, he thought. And right now, scared to death. She glanced at him, but she didn’t seem to recognize him. She was focused on Christine.

LaBlanca stood up and walked over to them. She nodded to Fusco; they’d met, didn’t know each other well. She was more focused on Fitzgerald, too. “I need a little magic,” she said very quietly.

“What the hell’s going on?”

The detective gritted her teeth. “We picked up Jorgansen, no problem. Still looking for his partner. But the girl’s mom came down to throw his bail.”

“What, for the creep?” Fusco asked.

“Unless we can talk her out of it.”

“Oh, I can talk her out of it,” Christine answered darkly. “She back there?”

“Yeah. Told her we had some more paperwork to do.”

“Alright. Give me a minute.”

The hacker walked back to the doorway. The little girl stood up. She was trying not to cry. “She doesn’t believe me,” she said, and then the tears came. “I _told_ you she wouldn’t believe me.”

“I know.” Christine put her arms around her. “But _I_ believe you. And I will convince her.”

“But if he gets out …”

“He won’t. Marisa, listen to me. He is not going to hurt you any more. I promise. He is not going to get anywhere close to you.”

Fusco straightened up. He wasn’t sure if Reese and his genius friend were listening in. For once he hoped they were. Because if Christine couldn’t convince this girl’s idiot mother to leave her scumbag boyfriend in jail, they were going to need to do something quick and dirty about it. He didn’t think the mercenary would mind. He knew he wouldn’t. He already had a shovel in his trunk.

Christine leaned to the nearest desk and got a tissue for the girl. “This will be okay,” she promised again.

The girl looked past her and her eyes got very big.

                                                           x  x  x  x  x 

Harold Finch regarded the bulky machine with an equal blend of fond nostalgia and exasperated impatience.

“Problem, Finch?” Reese asked in his earpiece.

“Microfiche,” Finch answered.

His partner whistled softly. “That’s really old school. Are you sure this isn’t a wild goose chase? Or Finch chase? Or Wren chase?”

“I’ll call you when I have something,” Harold answered drily. He tapped his earpiece off. Then he switched on the ancient machine and sat down in front of the screen.

From Daniel Geis’ police record, he had a rough idea where to start looking. He used the index to select the correct microfiche sheet and placed it in the reader. He studied the visible dates, then scrolled to the left. Too fast; the blurred print in motion made him queasy. He checked the date, then closed his eyes and moved downward.

It took several more moves to get the hang of it. He finally located the starting date he’d selected. It was the first date on the uncle’s criminal record, one of the ones for which the actual report had been lost. He intended to look through the metro sections, hoping for mentions or details in crime articles.

Instead, he found him on the front page.

Finch sat back, startled. Then he leaned closer, adjusted his glasses, and read the whole article. He had found not only Daniel Gies, but his brother Patrick, and even – especially – Baby Eric.

When he finished, Harold took a deep breath. It was absolutely unexpected. Fascinating, in a dark way. And he wasn’t sure how yet, but it was most likely very important. “Wild Finch chase, indeed,” he muttered smugly.

He printed it – an unnecessarily complex process – then moved on slowly, page by page, following the story. He printed each reference that he found. There were dozens in the first weeks, then one each week for the next three weeks, then nothing.

Finch picked up his phone. Then he paused. They knew that Eric Geis had grown up with his mother, moved to Toledo, spent his life as a police officer. So obviously there had to be more to the story, somewhere. He would not, he decided, call Mr. Reese until he had it all.

As he continued to scroll, his fingers wandered over the keys of the phone. He remembered vaguely that he hadn’t checked on Christine for a while. Still absently, he clicked on her number.

The first thing he heard was a child’s scream. The second was a man’s ugly voice. The third was a gunshot. And then a great many more.

                                                           x  x  x  x  x 

The girl screamed.

A man to Fusco’s left shouted, “You lying little slut!”

The detective spun. LaBlanca yelled, “Gun!” Fusco saw it, saw the muzzle flash. Then he heard it. His service weapon was already in his own hand. He fired at the man. From the sound, a lot of other cops did, too. He knew LaBlanca’s gun went off beside him.

The girl screamed again.

Fusco didn’t even wait to watch the man hit the floor. He was still turning, toward where the perp’s gun had been aimed.

Christine was standing – _standing, thank God_ – with her back to him. Her left hand was braced against the doorframe over the child’s head. Her right arm was around Marisa, hugging her child against her torso. At first glance they were both fine.

The hacker wore a short coat, wool, navy. There was a small tear in it, on her left shoulder, and a stain, something black. Spreading. Not black, Fusco corrected mentally as he hurried over to her. It was red. It just looked black on the navy. ”I need a bus!” he bellowed.

Christine was very calm. “Listen to me,” she said to Marisa. The child looked up; she was crying again. The woman blocked her view of the body. “Listen. Nothing that happened here is your fault. You didn’t do anything wrong. You didn’t have any choice in this. Remember that.”

“But … but …”

Fusco put his arm gently around Christine’s waist. She leaned into him, just a little. Her attention was still focused on the child. There was a bullet hole in the doorframe, just at shoulder height. A little smear of red. The bullet had passed through her shoulder. _Back-to-front, through and through,_ _not a hollow-point,_ he thought in absent cop-mode. _Good. This is good._ He wanted to make her sit down, but he knew that what happened right now, in these first couple minutes, could change the child’s whole life.

He knew, because he’d screwed it up once – and Christine had paid the price.

“He was a bad man,” she went on. “He made bad choices, and he hurt you. And he was so stupid that he pulled a gun in a police station, and it got him killed. You did not make him bad, and you did not make him stupid. This is all on him. Understand?”

The girl’s chin quivered, but she nodded.

LaBlanca came to the woman’s other side. “Ambulance is coming,” she said quietly.

“Parker is dead,” Christine said. “It’s up to you, if you want to see him or not. And here’s the thing. You have to decide if what you’re going to see is worse than what you’re going to imagine.”

“I want …” Marisa began softly. She swallowed hard. “I want to see him.”

“Okay.” Christine turned, and her knees buckled. Fusco tightened his grip, kept her upright.

“I got this,” LaBlanca said. It wasn’t procedure, but it felt right to all of them. She took the girl’s hand and they walked closer to the man’s body. Half-way there Marisa stopped. She stared. Then she turned away. They walked back to Christine.

“You got shot,” Marisa said solemnly.

“Little bit. I’ll be okay.”

“You sure?”

“I’m sure. I’ll call and check on you later.”

 The detective walked the child out of the squad room.

“Alright,” Fusco breathed. “Let’s sit you down.” He pivoted, half-carried her three steps and dropped her into a chair.

“I think I’m okay,” Christine said. “Just get me a towel or something.”

He eased her out of her coat. She was wearing a white shirt; the blood was soaking into it on both sides, but he knew it looked worse than it was. _Not a hollow-point_ , he thought again. That made the exit wound a lot smaller. “Yeah, I don’t think a towel’s gonna do it.” But someone brought him a handful of paper towels, and he pressed them against the wounds on both sides. “Just hang in there.”

Christine looked up at him calmly. “Lionel. I’m okay.”

“You got shot, kid. You’re not okay.”

She sighed indulgently. “You guys all worry too much.”

Right on cue, Fusco’s phone chirped. He grimaced, unwilling to release the pressure on her shoulder. Christine chuckled and reached inside his jacket to retrieve it. She clicked on the speaker. “Hey, Random.”

“Christine!” Finch shouted. “What in the world happened?”

“I got shot,” she announced cheerfully. “In the shoulder.”

“That’s not funny.”

Fusco leaned toward the phone. “She’s not kidding.” He glanced around. There were a dozen cops within earshot. “But she’s okay. We’ll call you.”

A uniform brought a shock blanket. “Put it over her legs,” Fusco directed.

“Detective …”

“I’m fine,” Christine said. “But we’re busy. We’ll call you.” She clicked the phone off and put it back in his pocket.

LaBlanca came back with another blanket. She draped it over Christine’s uninjured shoulder. “Where’s Marisa?” Fusco asked.

“With her mother,” the detective grumbled. “I got somebody on the door. Told her we’d need a statement. I don’t want her leaving with that crazy bitch until I get things straightened out.”

“Therapy,” Christine said.

“I’ll take care of it,” LaBlanca answered, exasperated. “Can’t you just sit there and bleed quietly and let me do my job?”

“I’m not cold, you know.”

Fusco sighed. “That would be a no,” he told the other detective.

The paramedics showed up; the fire station was only three blocks away, and of course cop calls got priority. One of them took a look at Parker, shook his head. Then they both converged on Christine. “Little room here, Detectives?” one of them said, shouldering Fusco back.

He moved to Christine’s other side, perched his hip on the edge of a desk, still close enough to be in the way.

“Little _more_ room?” the other paramedic said.

“No,” Fusco said calmly. “I don’t think so.”

Christine said, “Just bandage it up. I got things to do.”

“Oh, you’re going to the hospital,” the first one assured her.

“I don’t need to go to the hospital.”

One of the lieutenants spoke up. “You got shot in a police precinct, Miss. You _are_ going to the hospital.”

“I don’t need to …”

“We can put you in handcuffs,” Fusco suggested.

“Oooooh, kinky. But no.”

“Nobody’s asking you,” LaBlanca said. “You’re going in. You can fight with the ER docs when you get there.”

The second paramedic got scissors and cut away the shoulder of her shirt. “Little room, people? Please?”

Fusco stayed where he was. The others backed off a bit.

“Can you get me a glass of water?” Christine asked.

Fusco grumbled, but he stood up and went to get it.

“We’re not going to let you drink anything until we know if you’re going into surgery,” the first paramedic groused.

“I know. Give me my phone. It’s in my jacket.”

“Your call will wait,” the second medic said.

“No, it won’t. Get it now, or I swear to God I’ll walk right out of here.”

He made a face at her, but he got her phone.

                                                           x  x  x  x  x 

Finch slammed his computer, grabbed the sheets off the printer, and stuffed it all in his bag. He listened to the conversation in the precinct while he put his coat on. Just chatter, and Christine sounded remarkably cheerful, but he was neither convinced nor reassured. For the second time in as many days, he was going to the hospital.

Ha allowed himself to shudder, just once.

And then he heard Christine’s voice, very soft. “I know you’re still listening,” she said.

He stopped. She was speaking directly to him.

“I’m guessing that you plan on rushing right down here. But I need you to listen. I need you to do something for me.”

Harold held his breath.

“I’m okay, really. The bullet went straight through. It doesn’t even hurt very much. I guess I have to let them take me to the ER, and then I’m going home. I’ll be fine. But I need you to let Lionel do this with me. He’s really pissed off at me. And he has reason to be. We need this.”

A man’s voice said, “Who the hell are you talking to?”

Finch looked around wildly. Everything in his nature wanted to rush to her side. And yet she was completely logical in her argument. “I can’t …” he said.

“Please,” she went on. Harold realized that she couldn’t hear him. “Please let him do this. You can bring me dinner later and get reassured then, okay?”

A second man said, “She can’t have that water.”

“Then why did you let me get it?” Fusco complained.

“So you’d get out of our way.”

“I’ll leave me phone on,” Christine whispered.

There was a rustle, cotton fabric against the phone as she dropped it into her shirt pocket.

Almost subliminally, under the muffled ongoing voices, he could hear her heart beat.

Finch sat back down slowly. The heartbeat, more than anything, convinced him. Steady, even, strong. His panic began to subside. The adrenaline waned, left him feeling vaguely sick.

He looked around the little room. The microfiche machine still glowed invitingly. Eric Geis was still out there, and they still didn’t know what he was doing. There was work to be done here.

But first, he needed to bring Reese up to speed on the situation. He wouldn’t be happy, but he’d be a lot less happy if he found out about it later.

Harold linked the feed from Christine’s phone directly through to John’s. Without explanation, he let his partner listen while the young woman chatted easily with the paramedics and the cops. It was a full two minutes before his phone chirped and Reese said, “Finch? What’s going on?”

“Christine Fitzgerald has been shot,” Finch answered as calmly as he could. Before Reese could answer, he went on. “As you can hear for yourself, her injury is not serious.”

“Where?” Reese demanded.

“Inside the 15th Precinct. Outside the Computer Crimes Unit.”

“Where was she _shot_?”

“Oh. In the shoulder.”

“I _knew_ this was going to happen,” he growled. “Where are they taking her?”

Finch took a deep breath. “Christine asks that we allow Detective Fusco to handle this matter.”

Reese snorted.

“There’s apparently some friction between them,” Harold continued. “She thinks this will help smooth it over.”

“Harold …”

“I think I’ll have Will look in on her,” Finch went on calmly, decisively. “And she said we could take her dinner later. After she’s been treated and released.”

There was a long silence. Finch could hear the continuing chatter, Christine insisting that she didn’t need to go to the hospital, Fusco and his colleagues insisting with equal conviction that she did. It was all very calm, casual. She was not only not in danger, but apparently not in much pain.

The heartbeat continued steadily beneath it all.

That was, Finch knew, more convincing than anything he could have said.

Finally, Reese sighed. “I’ll stay on Geis,” he said grudgingly. “But keep an ear on her.”

“Of course, Mr. Reese.”

He ended the call. Listened for another moment to the police station conversation. Then he called Will Ingram.

 

 

 


	11. Chapter 11

“I’m not staying,” Christine insisted.

The ER doctor rolled his eyes. “I know this seems like a relatively minor wound, but that fact is that any gunshot wound is serious …”

“No.”

“And your PulseOx reading isn’t what I’d like it to be …”

“Not. Staying.”

Fusco moved closer to the bed. “Chrissy, look …”

“Don’t call me Chrissy!” she snapped. “They’ve put stitches in, I’ll wear the sling, but there is absolutely no reason I should stay here. And I’m not staying.”

“ _Christine_ ,” Fusco said as patiently as he could, “you got shot in the precinct. If you walk out of here, the brass are gonna have my ass.”

“They’re welcome to have _my_ ass, and they can kiss it all the way home.”

The doctor had a pallor to him that said he’d been working for a couple days straight. He’d been pleasant enough at first, but that had worn thin as his patient became more steadily difficult. “Look, Miss …” he began again.

Lionel kept waiting for some back-up in his ear, but it never came. Finally he yanked his phone out and looked at it. It read, ‘No Signal’. He was on his own.

Except he wasn’t. A young guy came to the doorway of the treatment room. “I have a solution,” he said calmly.

The guy wore sunglasses and a battered plaid fedora, the kind only men over seventy could get away with. As he took them off, grinning self-consciously, Fusco thought he should recognize him. He was about Chrissy’s age. Faded jeans and a brown leather jacket, light brown hair and huge brown eyes.  He was damn pretty, Fusco thought; he didn’t swing that way, but if he did, this guy would be worth the whistle. “Who the hell are you?” As the words came out, he remembered where he’d seen him before. But it was okay; the guy hadn’t seen him, didn’t know that he knew who he was.

“I’m Will Ingram,” he answered. He came all the way into the room and stuck his hand out.

_Yes, you are_ , Fusco thought while he shook the young man’s hand. As in Ingram, the Professor’s dead billionaire friend. This guy was the IFT founder’s son and only heir, and he wore Levi’s and scuffed leather shoes that looked older than Fusco’s. “Lionel Fusco,” he said tightly.

He didn’t ask why Ingram was wearing a half-ass disguise. Maybe it was a billionaire thing. Fusco didn’t actually care. The shoes made him feel better.

“Nice to meet you.” The kid sounded completely sincere.

“What’re you doing here?” Christine demanded.

Fusco was glad, because it saved him the trouble of asking. He knew how this guy and the Professor were connected, but he didn’t know how Chrissy figured in. If this guy was her new boyfriend, that would help a lot. But their body language was wrong.

Plus, Christine turned over new boyfriends every week or two, so he probably didn’t have any more influence that Fusco did.

“Uncle Harold called,” he said easily. “He said you were likely to be a non-compliant patient and I should come and see what I could do.”

“Non-compliant,” the ER doctor snorted. “That’s for damn sure.”

“She needs to stay,” Fusco said. He silently applauded that the guy had brought Harold’s name into it. He probably had more pull with Scotty than any of them.

“I’m not staying,” Christine insisted.

A big guy in a dark suit drifted passed the doorway. Fusco looked until he drifted past again. It wasn’t Reese, but he had that same ‘don’t mess with me’ vibe. Bodyguard, the detective realized. Sure. Junior billionaires shouldn’t leave home without one.

“Compromise,” Will said. “What if she goes home with, and in the care of, her private physician?”

There was a moment of silence in the room. “You’re a doctor?” the ER doc asked.

“I am.”

“Then explain to her why we’re worried that she’s not saturating higher,” he said. He jabbed his finger toward the monitor.

He’d been making that argument for half an hour. Fusco looked at the screen The number in question hovered between 95 and 96, though sometimes it dropped as low as 94. When they’d put an oxygen mask on the woman, it had gone up to 98 and stayed there. It was supposed to be 99 or 100, Fusco knew, but he didn’t see why a couple points were such a big deal to the doctor. Christine didn’t either; she’d shoved the mask away after ten minutes, complaining that it made her face sweaty.

Ingram looked over at it, frowned a little. “You try running O2?”

“Until she refused it. It got us a couple points.”

“Medication suppression?”

The house doctor made a face at him. “Shouldn’t be. No opiates.”

“Hmmm.” Will shrugged. “Maybe she always runs that low.”

“Yeah, maybe. But since she got shot in a cop shop, I’m not comfortable letting her walk out with that level.”

“I can see why you’d be concerned,” Ingram said. His voice was very reasonable, soothing. “And why you’d want to admit her. I’ll certainly keep an eye on that overnight. But you’re not seeing any other complications?”

“Infection risk, of course. And late bleeding. And all the other usual concerns. You treated gunshot wounds?”

Will nodded again. “A lot of them. She’s had IV antibiotics?”

“Ran two courses.”

“Good.”

Just that fast, Fusco realized, the ER doc was ready to sign off on this plan. Actually, Lionel was, too. It was better than letting her go home alone, which was apparently Christine’s plan. He liked the idea of that big bodyguard hovering around her. And if Finch was on board with it, it was probably solid. Mr. Glasses was pretty damn serious about protecting this girl.

Which left just one more person to convince.

Christine, of course, said, “No.”

“It looks to me like you only have two choices,” Ingram said calmly. “You can stay here, or you can come stay with me and Julie tonight.”

“You can’t make me stay here.”

“I got handcuffs right here,” Fusco offered. “If he can’t, I’m pretty sure I can.”

Christine glared at him. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“Try me.”

Whether he knew it or not, the young guy stepped right into the good cop role. “It’ll be fun,” he promised. “We’ll make Uncle Harold bring us something really expensive for dinner, lobster or something, and we’ll have popcorn and watch crap movies.” He looked to Fusco. “You can come over if you want.”

“No,” Christine said again.

Ingram didn’t give up. “This is how this works now, Scotty. You throw a flash mob for us, we throw a slumber party for you. That’s what friends do, okay?”

“Will … “

“You got _shot,_ Scotty. I don’t think you know how many people are really, really worried about you right now.” 

“That’s what I been trying to tell her,” Fusco said.

“See? And if you go home alone, all of us will spend the whole night worrying about you some more. Trying to figure out if we should call you or stop over or if you’re sleeping or what. If you come home with me and Jules, just for tonight, then nobody has to worry.”

She looked like she might be wavering. “He’s making sense, kid,” Lionel said. “I got enough to deal with, I don’t need to be worrying about you all night, too.”

Christine still didn’t jump. “Oh,” Will said, “and I forgot to tell you. We got an offer on the loft finally. We’re probably going to sell it. So this may be your last chance to sleep there. Ever.”

She looked surprised. Fusco thought she might even be blushing a little.

“You’re really a doctor?” the ER doc asked.

“I am. I promise.” Ingram brought out his wallet, flipped it open. He had some kind of official-looking ID with a big Red Cross symbol on it.

The doctor barely looked at it. “Okay. I’m good with this.”

“It’s okay with me,” Fusco said.

Christine remained silent.

“Oh, come on,” Will said. “You know you want to.” When she still didn’t answer, he pulled out what Fusco could tell was his very last card. “We’ll let you sleep in Dad’s room.”

She sighed heavily. And she definitely blushed then. But she smiled, too, resigned.

“That’s a yes,” Will decided cheerfully. “Get me some discharge papers.”

“Uh … okay.” The doctor left the room.

Ingram beamed.

It took Fusco a minute to figure out what had convinced her. Dad’s room, which would mean Nathan Ingram’s … oh.

So Chrissy didn’t have a thing for the pretty young billionaire – just as well, since it sounded like he had a live-in girlfriend already – but she did for his dead father. Who had been Four-Eye’s best friend. He wondered if Harold knew about that. It was – interesting. In a don’t-think-about-it-too-hard sort of way.

Anyhow, it had worked.

He looked the young guy over again. He liked him, he decided. Ingram dressed in a way that didn’t make Fusco’s wallet ache in sympathy. He didn’t seem stuck on himself. And he knew Scotty well enough to talk her into things she really didn’t want to do. The kid was a lot higher class than the people she normally ran with. He might do her good. Might do her a lot of good.

Sometime, Fusco decided, he needed to get this guy alone and talk to him about getting Scotty to move out of Chaos. He was pretty sure if Ingram got the whole story he’d be on board with the push. But that could wait.

He looked at Christine again. She looked exhausted. Home or hospital, what she needed now was some quiet and a nap. He looked back to Ingram. “Can you, uh, can you give us a minute?”

“Sure,” Will agreed right away. “I’ll go annoy her doctor some more.” He went.

Fusco moved closer to the bed. “You okay with this?” he asked, gesturing after Ingram.

“I don’t need a babysitter,” she complained mildly.

“You need something. You trust him?”

“Yeah.”

“You sure? You could come home with me.”

“You need to be with Lee,” Christine answered. “I know, I’m not supposed to tell you how to parent, but you do. Give me your phone.”

“There’s no signal here.” He gave her the phone anyhow. “I didn’t mean that, before. …”

“You’re not wrong. And we should work this out, how we should handle stuff like this going forward. It’s bound to happen again.” She pulled him close, gestured for him to smile for the phone, and snapped a picture of the two of them.

“What’s that for?”

“To show to Lee, when you tell him I got shot.”

“Oh.” That actually made perfect sense; he could tell the boy that she was okay a hundred times, or he could just show him the picture. He tucked his phone away. “I think we handle it just like this. You deal with it the best you can, and then you tell me and I get pissed off at you about it, and then we’re okay.”

She made a little face at him. “Can we skip the shooting part next time?”

“Yeah, I think we could do that.” He shook his head. “I’m actually surprised Mr. Happy isn’t here beating the shit out of me right now.”

“Why? This wasn’t your fault.”

“I was there. It’s my fault.”

Christine shook her head. “Stupid people, stupid choices. Not your fault.”

Fusco nodded grimly. “Can I ask you something? If I had … that day?” He looked at her to be sure, but she knew exactly what day he meant. “If I had been smart enough to say something to you like you said to Marisa, that it wasn’t your fault, that you weren’t responsible … instead of making you say it to _me_ … would it have made a difference? In how you …”

“No,” Christine answered simply.

“Why not?”

“I had decided years before the shooting that my father was my responsibility. So you could have told me the shooting wasn’t my fault, but I already knew that. Letting him end up there in the first place? That was my fault.”

“You were a _kid_ ,” Fusco pointed out. “You weren’t much older than Marisa is now. How could you think you were responsible for him?”

“I was the only one he had,” she said. “I had to be responsible for him, because I was the only one who could be.” She shrugged, then winced. “That hurts,” she said, indicating her shoulder.

“Yeah, I bet.”

“Anyhow, it was a long time ago.”

Fusco shook his head. “This thing today. Shooting that guy in front of that little girl.”

“Yeah,” Christine sighed. “Kinda feels like we’re in a rut, you and I.”

A nurse in scrubs came bustling in. “Looks like you’re sprung,” she said cheerfully. She started shutting off monitors and unhooking leads. “We can get you dressed.”

She looked pointedly at Fusco, and belatedly he started to back out of the room. “You sure you’re okay?”

“Go see your boy, Lionel,” Christine answered, swinging her feet over the side of the bed. “We’ll talk tomorrow.”

“Sooner, if you need anything,” Fusco insisted.

“Yes, dear.”

He made a little face at her. The nurse closed the curtain on him.

                                                            x  x  x  x  x 

Billy Jorgansen looked Carter up and down when she came into the interrogation room. His lip curled and his eyes dismissed her. _Too old for you, huh?_ she thought bitterly. _You like your women to be about ten, twelve_? She tried to keep the sneer off her own lips and knew she didn’t quite succeed.

Beside him, the public defender looked confused and uneasy. He stood up. “Tim Marlin,” he said, offering his hand across the table. “Court-appointed.”

“Joss Carter.” She shook his hand. They both sat down.

“We understood that Mr. Jorgansen’s bail had been posted,” he said.

“Change of plan,” Carter answered. She sat down across from them. “Marisa’s mother decided to save her money.”

Jorgansen smirked. “Stupid bitch.”

“Watch your mouth.”

“Or what? You gonna arrest me again?” He tried to fold his arms, but the chains of his cuffs were too short. He leaned back in his chair. “Don’t matter. My friend’ll get me out of here.”

“Your friend Joe Parker?” Joss asked calmly. “Don’t hold your breath. He’s dead.”

For a moment the cocky look on his face faded. He licked his lips. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Carter held his eyes. “He tried to kill Marisa, in the precinct. Got himself shot a whole bunch of times.”

Jorgansen snorted. “He get the girl?”

Marlin stirred. “You should stop talking now,” he said.

“No, _you_ should stop talking now,” he snapped. “If the girl’s dead, they got nothing on me.”

“You think so?” Joss asked calmly.

“No witness, no crime. If the kid can’t testify, I’m walkin’ out of here.”

“They have other evidence,” the attorney said tightly.

“So that was your plan?” Carter mused. “If you got caught, you’d just kill the witness?”

“Don’t answer that,” Marlin warned.

“We know what happens to guys like us inside,” Jorgansen answered. “Some minor makes a bunch of wild accusations, you end up doing hard, hard time. Everybody knows that.”

“Seriously,” his attorney urged, “you need to stop talking.”

“Parker, he always said he wouldn’t do time like that. Said he’d kill the witness so it couldn’t go to trial. And if that didn’t work,” he grinned slowly, “he said he’d rather go out in a big ol’ blaze of glory than do time like that.”

Carter nodded thoughtfully. “So you knew your partner planned to kill the child if she talked.”

“Oh, God, _shut up_ ,” Marlin pleaded.

“’Course I knew,” Jorgansen boasted. “Like I said, we had a plan.”

The detective looked at the attorney. He looked back at her for a moment. Finally he just shrugged and gave up. “You did the best you could,” Carter consoled him.

“What?” the suspect asked.

“You,” Carter said with a certain measure of satisfaction, “just confessed to conspiracy to commit murder. I think we can argue accessory to attempted murder. And since both were committed in the course of committing another felony …”

“You’re going away forever,” his attorney told him flatly.

Jorgansen looked back and forth between them. Then he grinned and sat back again. “I don’t think so. The girl’s dead, so you got nothing on me.”

“The _girl_ has a name,” Carter snapped. “Her name is Marisa. She is ten years old. And you are nothing but a …” She stopped, bit her bottom lip. “Marisa is not dead. Marisa is not even hurt. But she will not have to testify, either. The guy you were going to sell Marisa’s pictures to? Isn’t even a guy. She’s a woman who works with the police catching scumbags like you. Every word of every contact you had with her has been recorded. Your PayPal transactions was recorded And then there’s _this_ whole conversation.”

“But …” Jorgansen turned to his attorney. “You can fix this, right? I mean, she can’t make me just confess like that, can she? Isn’t there some kind of … some kind of, like church, you can’t repeat anything I say to you? Right?”

Marlin took a deep breath. He looked to Carter like he was going to cry. Or scream. She gave him a tight, encouraging smile. Then she stood up and walked out of the room.

Jorgansen shouted at her back. She let herself grin with grim satisfaction.

 

 


	12. Chapter 12

Reese slid into the booth across from his partner. Finch was drinking from a small round cup while he waited for his order. There was a tea pot on the table and another cup waiting for John. He looked around the tiny restaurant. There were gold dragons on the wall, of course, and red faux silk on the chairs. The décor was tacky, but the air smelled good. His stomach quite abruptly informed him that he was hungry.

Finch poured him some tea. John stirred a pack of sugar in. “Well?”

“Mr. Geis’ personal history makes for quite remarkable reading,” Harold answered. “Quite remarkable. I’m not sure what to make of this.” He pushed a folder across the table to him. “Mr. Geis was kidnapped as an infant.”

Reese glanced up at him, then opened the folder and scanned the first article. “Three months old. Disappeared while his mother was at work. His father was supposed to be watching him.”

“His father and his _uncle_ ,” Finch corrected. “Patrick and Daniel Geis. They claimed they put the baby to bed and went out to the stoop to smoke. That someone came in the back door and took the child.”

“You don’t sound convinced.”

“The police certainly weren’t. Largely due to the fact that the back door was locked when the mother came home, and both men were very drunk.” Finch reached across and turned to the next page, when the smaller headline read, ‘Father and Uncle are Suspects’. “They believed that two men had killed the infant, perhaps accidentally. But they were unable to locate the body.”

“But Eric wasn’t dead. How did they get him back?”

Finch turned more pages. “Six weeks later the child was left at a church just down the block from his home. He was somewhat malnourished, but otherwise unharmed.”

“Ransom?”

“Unlikely. The Geis family was largely supported by the mother’s wages. They weren’t wealthy.”

“Someone stole this child, then just decided to give him back?”

“Apparently,” Finch said. He didn’t sound any happier with that answer than John felt. “He would have been difficult to conceal, I suppose.”

Reese glanced back through the file. “Red hair, green eyes. Pretty distinctive.”

“Yes.”

“No other suspects?”

Finch made a face. “The police reports were destroyed prior to being scanned to digital records. I doubt that we could locate any of the investigating officers. Though some are mentioned by name in the newspaper articles …”

“Waste of time,” Reese said. “The child was returned.” He sat back. “So … Eric Geis is trying to track down his uncle because he blames the man for letting him be snatched when he was a baby?”

“It’s as likely as any other explanation we’ve come up with,” Finch answered. He was clearly exasperated. 

“There’s got to be more to it,” Reese mused aloud. “Maybe Red just wants to find him to ask about it.”

“The Machine would not have given us his Number if that were the case.”

“Mmm.”

“There’s something else,” Finch said slowly. “When they brought Eric back to his mother … she initially claimed that he wasn’t her child. That they’d brought her the wrong baby.”

John felt a weird sick sensation in the pit of his stomach. Pure gut feeling, literally. “And there weren’t any DNA tests then.”

“None available for another quarter of a century. But he was a red-haired, green-eyed child of the right approximate age.” Harold shrugged slightly. “They labeled her a nervous mother. And left her with the child. She had – issues. Drinking, mainly, and a series of resultant health problems. We can hypothesize that there may well have been some sort of attachment disorder resulting from the abduction.”

“From what we hear,” Reese countered, “Red was very devoted to him mother, right up until she died.” He turned it over in his head. “Maybe … devoted to the mother, resentful of the father and the uncle who’d hurt her?”

“The father has been dead for years,” Finch joined in. “Out of reach.”

“But not the uncle.”

“This guy’s been holding a grudge since the cradle?”

“Or at least since he was old enough to understand that there was something very wrong between him and his mother,” Finch agreed.

John shook his head. “He may still just be looking for answers.”

“With an unregistered weapon hidden in his hotel room?”

The waitress carried two big bags and one small one to the front counter. “Mr. Wren?” she called.

Finch stood up. “I’ll see if I can find anything else after dinner.”

John’s stomach rumbled again. He wished he’d thought to order while he was talking with Finch. “The uncle’s out of town until tomorrow, but I’ll stick with Geis, see what he’s up to, just in case.”

Finch signed the credit card slip and pushed it back across the counter. “After dinner,” he repeated. He handed the smaller bag to Reese.

John grinned softly. “Thank you, Harold.”

“I don’t know if you’re aware of this, Mr. Reese, but you can be somewhat difficult to work with when you’re hungry.”

“Me?”

“You tend to shoot people,” Finch confirmed. He took the two bigger bags and walked out.

The waitress stared at Reese. “He’s kidding,” John told her, with his best winning smile. “Really.”

She was not convinced.

                                                      x  x  x  x  x 

Christine curled up in the corner of the couch in what had been Nathan Ingram’s living room. She wore a t-shirt and sweat pants that Julie had loaned her. Her left arm was in a navy sling.  Harold sat next to her, close and watchful, helping her as needed. He didn’t think the sling would last more than a few days, but for tonight she seemed willing to keep her arm still. She was pale, quiet, and she looked tired. The hospital had sent her home with pains meds they guaranteed were non-narcotic, but she seemed drowsy.

He supposed she’d had enough blood loss and trauma to account for her exhaustion.

Will had unpacked the Chinese food on the coffee table. Between them they’d gotten her to eat a couple dumplings, half of a spring roll, and most of a bowl of egg drop soup. 

He glanced at his nephew and wasn’t surprised to find that the young man was watching Harold watching her. They exchanged small smiles. Evidently Will was satisfied with her condition. It was reassuring.

Julie helped him clear away the containers and plates from dinner. When they returned, Will carried a cardboard box, three feet high, two feet on each side. “We bought you something,” he announced, setting it at Christine’s feet.

She blinked, bewildered. “For me?”

“It’s for your new place,” Julie said. “For the yard. But it can be a ‘sorry you got shot’ present, too.”

“You didn’t have to do that.”

“It didn’t get wrapped,” Will apologized.

“You really didn’t …”

“Yeah, yeah.”

She opened the box awkwardly with one hand, then peered in and frowned. Harold sat forward and helped her pull the thing out.

It was colorful, metal, not heavy, and for a moment he couldn’t have said another thing about it. Then he set it down on the coffee table and the quiet air handlers of the loft moved one blade on the contraption, and then all the parts on it moved.

It was red and blue and green and yellow, a whirligig, a garden sculpture with seven spinning blades, six of them balanced on three pivoting arms, the last on the top. It was so elaborate that Harold recognized it immediately as art rather than kitsch. Although it was kitschy, too. It was whimsical, delightful.

As it spun and turned in the gentle air, Christine’s face lit up. “That is so cool.”

“It’s a Vollis Simpson,” Will said. “He built all kinds of them. We found it at this little gallery. We couldn’t decide if it was wonderful or … tacky.”

“Wonderful,” Christine pronounced firmly. She poked lightly at one of the spinning wheels and the contraption canted to the left. It changed the look, the way the pieces spun. The whole construction was delicately balanced, flexible and sturdy at the same time.

“I love it.” She smiled, clearly enchanted. “Thank you.”

A tea kettle whistled in the kitchen. “I’ll get that,” Julie said, trotting out again. When she returned, she carried a tray with a real tea set on it, not the English silver kind but the Chinese clay sort, glazed red, a pot and four cups and a sugar bowl. Harold regarded it fondly. He’d bought it for Nathan, years ago when he’d first moved into the loft. More specifically, he’d bought it for himself to store at Nathan’s loft, because all his partner had was a coffee pot.

It was bittersweet, that Nathan was gone but the tea set remained.

And then, watching Julie pour tea for the four of them, it was simply sweet.

He stirred two sugars into one of the little cups and gave it to Christine. Sweeter than she liked, he knew, but she needed the sugar. She took it by the edges and sipped. Her eyes flicked down to the cup and then back up at him, a tiny eyebrow lift of question. He gave her a bare smile, a nod. Of course she would guess the origin of the tea set in Nathan’s loft. He liked it that she had.

There was a time when sharing a secret, even such a tiny one, would have troubled him. But since she knew the biggest secret of his life, it seemed pointless to worry about the smaller ones.

He had become more comfortable with this woman than he had ever anticipated being.

He looked at the tea cup in his hand and wondered what Nathan would have thought of Christine Fitzgerald now. There was an uncomfortable edge to that mental query, and he pushed it away.

“We have had,” Will said wearily, “a hell of a day all around.” He gestured to Christine. “But I think you win.”

“Oh, thanks.”

“Have you thought about what Miss Morgan said? About a cause?” Harold shook his head. “You’ve been busy, of course.”

“She’s not wrong,” Will conceded. “We do need to find something. And not just because of this reporter thing. We had so much security on our last trip, I could hardly get any work done.” He ran his hand over his forehead and up through his hair, an unconscious echo of a gesture his father often made. “I just don’t know where to start.”

“What do you think you want to do?” Christine asked.

Will shrugged. “Fix the world. Eliminate poverty. Starvation. Disease. Clean water. Safe food.”

“Stop wars,” Julie added, “air pollution, illiteracy, oppression.”

“You might as well cure cancer while you’re at it,” Harold suggested lightly.

“Sure,” Will agreed. “Why not?”

“What do you want to do _first_?” Christine tried again.

“That’s the problem,” Julie said. “Everything’s connected.”

Will shook his head. “It’s like a big tree. All these branches at the top, you could cut them off, but to get at the real root of the problems …” He gestured broadly. “There’s no good way to attack it. And unless you get the whole thing, roots and all, it just grows back.”

Christine shifted, re-settled her sling on her knee. Harold reached over and adjusted the pillow behind her head. “You need a rubber ducky. I think I’m your girl.”

“A what?” Will asked.

“A rubber ducky,” she explained. “It’s a way of debugging code. When you write a program and it doesn’t run right and you can’t figure out why, you find an inanimate object, traditionally a rubber ducky, and explain the code to it out loud, line by line, until you find the problem.” She shifted, then winced. “So break it down for me. Tell me about the branches.”

Will and Julie shared a look. “But you already know,” Julie began. “It’s all pretty obvious.”

“My brain is all soft and squishy right now. Try me.”

“I don’t even know where to start,” Will complained.

“Start anywhere. Start with … water, since I’m a duck.”

“Water. Okay.” He nodded. “Most of the places I’ve – we’ve worked, there isn’t enough water, if there’s any. So every day someone has to walk, sometimes really long distances, to bring back water for drinking, for washing …”

“They usually send the girls,” Julie joined in. “And if they’re walking for hours a day for water, they don’t have time to go to school. They carry water and then they get married and have daughters of their own, who don’t get educated either.”

“If you educate girls,” Will said, “they marry later, have children later, and have fewer of them. The children are healthier – so are the mothers – and the families are almost always less impoverished.”

“But the other problem with the lack of water,” Julie continued, “is the lack of irrigation for crops and water for livestock. So there’s malnutrition, which means the children especially get sicker more easily …”

Harold glanced at Christine. She was listening, nodding, letting them talk. Julie was right, it was all information she already had, or could easily have obtained. But she was attentive anyhow. Rubber duck debugging, he thought, applied to real life. He should have thought of it himself. But maybe he wasn’t the right one to help them through this, anyhow.

The two of them kept talking, trading off, about fuel for cooking fires, fuel for heat, how the cheapest fuel was usually what was also the most damaging to the environment and to the health of the people using it. About how illness drained the few resources people had, making it more difficult to obtain water or grow crops or educate their children. 

Harold listened to their words, but he also noted with great satisfaction the way their conversation fit together. They completed each other’s sentences, expanded on each other’s thoughts. They were good together. _Sympatico_. He and Grace had been that way once.

He looked at the red-glazed cup in his hands again.

Christine said, “Your architecture is wrong.”

Will stopped in mid-sentence. “What?”

“Your architecture. Your … the structure of your thinking. You talked about the whole thing being a tree, with branches and roots. But what you’re describing is more like a circuit. No, that’s not right.” Christine scowled, clearly struggling with her mental fog. “Everything’s connected, but not like branches off a central trunk. More like a … a …”

“A wheel,” Harold provided. “A bicycle wheel, with spokes.”

“Yes,” Christine agreed. “That. There is still a hub, a central issue, but it doesn’t matter. If you cut enough spokes, the wheel collapses. The hub becomes irrelevant.”

“A wheel,” Will said slowly. He was clearly struck by the image.

“If it’s a tree,” Julie mused, “you need a big ax and bigger muscles to make a dent in it. But if it’s a wheel …”

“… you only need wire cutters,” Will finished, “and a little leverage.”

“And if that’s the case,” Christine rejoined, “then you just need to decide what spoke to cut first. And then maybe partner with other groups that are better at cutting other spokes, until the wheel collapses.”

They looked at each other, and then they looked at her.

Harold sat very still, his hands tight around the warm red mug. He’d had a conversation just like this one, many many years ago, in a stuffy dorm room, with Nathan. It was the conversation where their future had begun. He couldn’t remember the exact words; he’d been two beers in and Nathan had been four. It didn’t really matter. He knew what had come next in that conversation, and what needed to come next now. “What challenges you most?” he asked quietly. “What fascinates you?”

Will glanced at Julie again. Then he reached out very slowly and tapped the colorful whirligig. It spun and turned, every-changing, cheerful. “Wind,” he pronounced.

Harold had a flash of huge wind farms in the desert, towering steel over the sand. His eyes narrowed. It was possible …

“Not the big commercial things,” Will continued. “Small windmills. Just big enough to pump water for a village.”

“With solar panels,” Julie added, “to power a school, central refrigeration, maybe a clinic.”

“But that’s one village,” he said. “To make any real difference, we’d need to build like a million windmills.”

Christine said, “So what?”

They both looked at her.

Harold could all but hear the pieces click into place.

“So it would cost a fortune,” Will said slowly.

“And take a lifetime,” Julie added.

They looked at each other.

The pieces locked.

“A million windmills,” Will repeated reverently.

It sounded very much like a new-minted mission statement to Harold.

Christine heard it, too. “I’m going to bed,” she announced. She patted his knee. “Come tuck me in.”

“All right.”

He put his cup down, and hers. Then he stood and gently helped her to her feet. She swayed a little, then steadied.

Will said, “I … um …”

“Think about it,” Christine said. “I’ll be your ducky tomorrow if you want.”

“We could …” Julie began.

“Tomorrow.”

They both fell silent again, struck dumb by the enormity of their idea.

That was not, in Harold’s opinion, an inappropriate response. Because they were right in their first assessment: It would cost a fortune, and it would take a lifetime. Both of their lifetimes. Which was exactly the sort of mission they’d been looking for, well before Maxine Angelis put in her appearance.

He held Christine’s arm as she climbed the stairs, but she was steady enough on her feet. “First room on the right,” Will called behind them. They turned the corner.

She went into the attached bathroom and closed the door. Harold turned the bed down, then waited for her.

It struck him, then, the significance of this room. It had been _Nathan’s_ room. He knew suddenly how Will had persuaded Christine to come home with him: He’d simply offered her a chance to sleep here.

He felt his cheeks grow hot. But of course Will knew. She’s never made a secret of her crush on his father.

Since Nathan was safely dead, she’d never had to.

It was not, he observed with some relief, actually Nathan’s bed that he was about to tuck her into. Harold’s long-time partner had purchased a California king bed for his home after his divorce. He knew about it because Ingram had talked about it incessantly. He had blessedly been spared the details about any women Nathan had planned to seduce in his new bed. But the size of the bed itself, the amount of space available, the fact that his tall frame had never had so much room to sprawl -- he’d heard about that in great detail.

The bed he was currently sitting on was queen sized. Probably the realtor had swapped out the furniture for showings; the smaller bed made the room seem even more spacious than it was.

It was foolish, he decided, to be so relieved about that small concession to his sense of propriety. But he was relieved nonetheless.

He didn’t know if Will knew that this wasn’t his father’s bed. He was certain Christine didn’t. He didn’t see any need to enlighten her.

The whole concept was a little disconcerting, but honestly, Harold couldn’t see any harm in it. Let her keep her pretty fantasies. God knew she had few enough of them. 

It was actually more disconcerting to know that Will had inherited his father’s utterly irreverent sense of humor.

Behind the door, Christine coughed briefly and then said, “Owww, shit.”

“Are you alright?” he called.

“Coughing sucks.”

“I imagine it does.”

As she came out of the bathroom, Harold’s phone rang. He didn’t even bother to look at it before he clicked it into speaker mode. “Just a minute.”

Christine climbed into bed and he pulled the covers up over her legs. “Hey, John,” she called.

“We discussed this,” Reese said gruffly. “What’s the first rule of gun safety?”

“Um …” she teased, “I forget.”

“If a gun goes off,” Reese instructed tersely, “you need to be _behind_ it, not in front of it.”

“Oh, right. I knew there was something about that.”

He sighed heavily. “Are you okay?”

“I’ll live.”

“Take your pain meds,” he said. “You don’t get a trophy for making yourself suffer.”

Finch rolled his eyes. Christine chuckled. “We’re going to put that on a loop and replay it for you every time you get hurt,” she said.

Reese snorted. “That’s different.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Anything you need?”

“No, I’m fine. Thank you.”

“Call me,” he said. The call went dead.

Christine handed the phone back and eased her arm out of the sling. Finch helped her take it off, bundled a spare pillow behind her back as she wriggled down into the bed. He put another in front of her, bracing her arm. Then he pulled the covers up over her. “Good?”

“Yes. Thanks.”

“More blankets? Less?”

“It’s fine.”

“What else can I get you?”

“Not a thing. As the song says, I have become comfortably numb.”

He sat on the edge of the bed and smiled indulgently at her. “I can tell.”

“You might go buy John a drink or two, though. He sounds stressed.”

“He worries about you. As do I. You take too many risks.”

She made a little face. “No one could have anticipated that I’d get shot in a police station.”

“No,” Finch agreed, “but all of us anticipated that if you continued to pursue pedophiles, sooner or later you would get hurt.”

“I’m okay, Random.”

“You could have been killed.”

“Are you really going to sit there and lecture me about taking chances with my life?”

“It’s different, Christine. John and I are …” Finch stopped, partly because her eyes actually fluttered closed and she had to fight them open, and partly because he wasn’t sure how to make his argument. _Because we’re big and strong?_ Well, John is, but I’m not. _And well-trained for this task?_ Again, that only applied to John. _Because we’re engaged in an important mission, protecting the innocent?_ That was exactly what she was doing, too.

_Because we’re grown men and you’re a helpless girl?_

She would come right up off the bed and scratch his eyes out. And he’d deserve it.

“We worry about you,” he finally said. “You’re …precious to us. To both of us.”

Christine gazed up at him sleepily. “I’m okay,” she repeated.

He sighed. “Get some rest. Will’s going to check on you through the night. And don’t hesitate to wake him if you need anything.”

“I will.”

She wouldn’t, he knew, but he was confident that Will would indeed check on her. “A million windmills,” he mused. “This has the makings of a great adventure.”

“It does,” Christine agreed. “I wish them well.”

“Hmmm.” He was amused that she thought she’d be exempt from the journey. But there was time for that later. Every time she blinked her eyes took longer to re-open. “I could stay and read to you until you’re asleep,” he offered.

“If you stay and read to me, I’ll stay awake to listen,” she answered drowsily.

Harold smiled gently. Then he leaned and kissed her forehead. “Good night, Christine.”

“Good night, Random.”

He stood, clicked off the lamp, and slipped out of the room. He left the door open a few inches. He heard her cough again, briefly, but then she settled. He walked down to the kitchen. Will and Julie were cleaning up the dishes, talking quietly.

“Uncle Harold,” Will said, a little nervously, “you’re, um, you’re welcome to stay, if you want.”

Harold frowned. “I will, if you like, but I think she’ll be fine. You should check on her, of course.”

“Of course.” The young man glanced at his lover, then back. “This idea, about the million windmills …”

Harold raised his hand gently. “It’s not a bad idea. It may be a very _good_ idea. But honestly, I think you should think about it. And then – try not to think about it. Let it settle, let it mature. Talk it over. Give it some time to grow. It may look very different in a few weeks.”

Will nodded solemnly. “Okay.”

“It’s the rest of your life, potentially. It’s worth giving it some time to be sure.”

The young man smiled. “I get that. It’s just, it’s really exciting.”

“Oh, be excited about it, by all means,” Harold encouraged. “Just keep it to yourselves for a while, until you’re sure of its final shape.” He shrugged. “That’s my advice, anyhow. For what it’s worth.”

“It’s worth a lot,” Julie assured him.

“And,” he continued, “you have other things to think about as well.” The both looked at him blankly. “If I’m not mistaken, you’ve also recently decided to embark on an adventure known as ‘Marriage’.”

“Oh, yeah, that.” Will grinned.

“First we have to get past the adventure known as ‘Meeting the Carson Family’,” Julie said.  “That may change his mind about the whole marriage adventure.”

“It won’t,” Will promised. “But it may be closely tied to the new ‘We’ve Decided to Travel Forever’ adventure.”

He was kidding, but Julie wasn’t. “That might not be a bad idea.”

“In any case,” Harold said, “you have a lot to think about.”

“Yeah.” Will sighed happily. “But it’s all good.”

“Yes. Oh, yes. I am so pleased for both of you, I really am.”

He stayed a few minutes more, just chatting, but it was obvious that the young couple needed time alone to talk about all the possibilities that suddenly lay before them. He pleaded exhaustion, which was not entirely a lie, and made his way to the door. Will walked with him to the street.

“Uncle Harold? I meant what I said before. If you want to stay … with Christine … it wouldn’t be … okay, it would be a little weird, but …”

Very belatedly, Finch realized what his nephew was implying. He felt his cheeks grow warm, but the dim light covered his blush. He hoped. “I appreciate that, Will.” He started to explain that they were only friends, but it sounded like he was over-explaining or evading or denying or … something. He left it as it was. “Thank you. For everything.”

The boy grinned, gently embarrassed again. “Good night.”

Harold made his way to his car, shaking his head. He should be flattered, he supposed, that Will thought a woman like Christine would be interested in someone his age that way. But then, Will had been aware of a number of young women who were interested in affairs with much older – and wealthy – men, specifically his father. So perhaps he should be dismayed that the boy thought he was so much like Nathan. That he would even consider …

He shook his head again. He was overthinking it. Will didn’t have a cynical bone in his body. If he assumed that Harold and Christine had a relationship, he almost certainly also assumed that it was romantic, rather than just physical. And from what Will had been allowed to know, it was a logical assumption.

He went back to thinking he should be flattered. And touched, that Will and Julie would be so accepting, if it were truly the case.

_She’s a friend_ , he thought. But in Harold’s world, that word, _friend,_ was more freighted with meaning than Will and Julie could possibly imagine. It was small wonder that they’d misread the relationship.

And really, a bit of misdirection was never a bad thing.

Human interaction, Harold thought wearily. He started the car.

 


	13. Chapter 13

Taylor stretched out on his back on his bed, his hands locked behind his head, and stared at the ceiling. The basketball game flickered on his TV screen, but he didn’t know what quarter it was or who was winning. It didn’t matter.

Tia had dumped him to be with Damon. Taylor had been pretty sure he was in love with her. He’d been pretty sure she was in love with him. But the minute Damon looked her way, she’d dumped him.

So, really, he was in the clear. Tia and her problems now had nothing to do with him. She’d made her choice. He was out clean. She needed to work this out with Damon. Not his business. Nothing to do with him.

Someone else’s problem.

That should be the end of it.

He dragged the pillow out from behind his head, pounded it together, and put it back.

Except … that he probably _was_ in love with Tia. Still.

And seeing her cry at lunch had about killed him.

And thinking about how scared she must be made him feel awful.

And thinking about her letting Damon … he stopped there, even though it had obviously happened, because _that_ idea made him want to throw up.

“Fuck,” he said softly, because _shit_ wasn’t cutting it any more.

He heard the front door open and close. Heard familiar footsteps before his mother called, “Taylor?”

“In here, Mom,” he called back.

She opened the door and looked in on him. “You okay, baby?”

“I’m fine, Mom.” She called him ‘baby’ all the time. It never bothered him before tonight.

“How’s the game?”

“Uh … wasn’t really paying any attention.”

Carter frowned, came all the way into the room, and sat on the edge of the bed. “What’s on your mind?”

He’d never been any good at lying to her. But he’d gotten a lot better at telling half-truths. “Just … Tia.”

“Ahhh. I’m sorry, baby. I know you really liked her.”

“Yeah.”

She patted his arm. “It’s tough right now. But it does get easier. I promise.”

Taylor nodded. “I know. I just … can I ask you something?”

“Shoot.”

“If somebody … makes a mistake, a really big mistake, and it’s not really …” He paused. “Never mind.”

His mother frowned. “People make mistakes, Taylor. All kinds of people. People who should know better. Sometimes they do things that they think are right at the time. And they find out later that it was wrong.” She shrugged. “You know what Maya Angelou says? ‘You did then what you knew how to do, and when you knew better, you did better.’ People learn, Taylor. Usually by making mistakes.”

“So you should forgive them?”

“If you can.”

“And … help them fix things?”

His mother nodded again. “If you can.”

Taylor sat up suddenly and hugged her. She was lumpy; she still had her vest on. He was weirdly glad about that. “Thanks, Mom.”

“Uh-huh.” She sat back and considered him suspiciously. “So what are you going to do now?”

“I’ll let you know, okay?”

She stood up. “All right. Let me know if I can help.”

“I will. Thanks.”

She went out and closed the door behind her.

Taylor lay back and stared at the ceiling for a while more.

He had an answer. And though it scared him to death, deep in his heart he felt better.

**  
**

                                                           x  x  x  x  x 

“Mr. Reese?”

“Finch? How’s our girl?”

“Sleeping soundly, I imagine. She’s exhausted, but perfectly safe.”

“Good.”

“I’ve found something on our detective. Eric Geis is an organ donor.”

“He really likes pulled pork sandwiches, too.” John lowered his camera. On a bench at the far side of the little park, their target was unwrapping the third sandwich he’d bought from the food cart. “So maybe his heart’s not a good candidate for transplant.”

Reese could hear his partner’s mild irritation in his brief silence over the comm. “When Mr. Geis put his mother in the nursing home following her stroke,” Finch finally said, “he also executed an organ donation card for her.”

“At her age?”

“I suppose some of her organs might still be usable. Corneas, perhaps. I really don’t know.”

“I’m sure you have a point, Harold.”

“On the registry,” Finch explained, “Eric Geis lists his blood type as O-negative. His mother’s is AB-negative.”

“His mother is …” Reese paused, did a quick 8th grade biology review in his mind. “If that data is correct …”

“Then Kimberly Geis was not, in fact, Eric Geis’ biological mother,” Finch completed.

“She was right,” John said slowly. “They brought her the wrong baby.”

“There was a case in the news recently,” Finch said. “Many years ago an infant was kidnapped from a Chicago hospital by a woman claiming to be a nurse, and apparently located more than a year later, abandoned in New Jersey. They identified him by the shape of his _ears_. And it’s very recently been determined that they were wrong. He was _not_ the missing child.”

Reese watched as Geis carefully wiped his fingers on a wet-nap. He finished his beverage, then gathered all his trash and carried it to the trash can. The man stretched, patted his belly. Reese guessed that if he was close enough, he would have heard the man belch.

“But _this_ child,” Finch continued, “was found so quickly, in the same city, and with such distinctive hair and eyes … and only the mother’s word that it wasn’t her baby.”

“There wasn’t DNA testing in the 60’s,” Reese said. “But there is now.”

“A detective would have access to lab analysis,” Finch agreed. “If he became curious …”

“He signed her up to be a donor to verify her blood type. Finch, you need to get into that police department.”

“I’ve tried, repeatedly. I don’t think it can be done.”

“You’re telling me that a police department in Ohio is too tough for you to hack?”

“I’m telling you,” Finch retorted, “that a police department is Ohio is too _old_ for me to hack. Their system is a nonsensical mish-mash of …”

“I believe you, Finch,” Reese said quickly, before he got the entire sermon. “But we need to know if he ran the DNA test. And what he found.”

There was another brief, exasperated pause. Then Finch said, “Perhaps I could …” His voice trailed off, but there was a suddenly burst of keyboard clicking in its place.

“Geis is headed back to his hotel,” John said.

“As you said, it’s likely that nothing will happen until the uncle returns from Atlantic City tomorrow,” Finch answered. “You should get some rest.”

“Probably not a bad plan. Let me know what you find.” Reese tapped off his earpiece.

                                                           x  x  x  x  x 

The cell phone rang, and Will Ingram was instantly, brutally awake. He sat up quickly, before he realized it. Then he paused, as his conscious mind caught up with his lizard brain. It was like being a resident all over again, waking up like that.

The phone rang for a second time and he grabbed it. “What?” he barked.

“You need to check on Christine,” a man said.

Will frowned, moved the phone away from his ear and looked at the screen. The number was blocked. The voice was unfamiliar. Deep. He brought the phone back.“What?”

“She can’t breathe,” the man snapped. “Help her!”

The call went dead.

“What?” Julie asked. She sounded as awake as he was.

“Scotty.” He hurtled to his feet, grabbed his bag – blessed the long training that made him always leave it by the door – and sprinted across the hall.

As he shouldered his way into the guest bedroom, he was momentarily grateful that he’d elected to sleep in his briefs, rather than completely nude as he usually did.

Christine Fitzgerald wouldn’t have cared if he was naked. She was flat on her back, writhing like a fish in the bottom of a boat. Gasping for air. Not getting any. She was almost silent. She couldn’t get enough air even to make a sound.

“Shit,” Will said. He sat on the edge of the bed, grabbed her under the arms and yanked upright. The bandages on the gunshot wound were soaked through on both sides, but there wasn’t enough blood to explain her condition. Her skin was gray. Through her borrowed t-shirt, he could feel how cold she was. Her body was limp; her head rolled back. He kept one arm around her and leaned away enough to let him grab her chin and look at her face. Her lips were blue. Her eyes fluttered, mostly stayed closed.

He heard Julie in the doorway. “Light,” he barked, and suddenly it was.

Illumination didn’t make the scene any better. Will pulled her mouth open, but he didn’t see any obstruction. He thumbed one eyelid open. Christine’s pupil barely responded to the bright light in the room. The other eye was equally unresponsive. She was still sucking for air, her whole body arching in the effort. She was getting a little oxygen, but it wasn’t enough.

Every time she tried to breathe her chest cratered. Her breastbone pulled visibly back toward her spine.

“Scope,” he said, and Julie scrambled in his bag.

He didn’t need to take her pulse. He could see it racing in the big veins in her neck, which stood out like ropes.

Julie sat behind Christine and held her upright while Will listened. He spared one random thought to be grateful for how efficient and useful his lady was. Always.

Christine’s left lung gurgled like an aquarium with a faulty pump. Her right lung simply whispered ineffectively.

“What the fuck?” he murmured to himself.

“What do you need?” Julie asked.

Will pulled the woman’s limp body against him again. He made himself take a deep breath – difficult, because his impulse was to try to breathe for Scotty, shallow and fast – and think. Bilateral pneumothorax. The left lung was a secondary pneumo, trauma-related; the bullet wound was bleeding into the pleural space. Right lung was primary. He had no idea why it had collapsed.

He needed to get one of her lungs re-expanded right now.

“Call an ambulance,” he said, “and bring me the meat thermometer.”

“The …” Julie jumped up, all her hesitation in her voice and none in her action. “Oh, shit.”

“And the little plastic sleeve it came with.”

“Alcohol?”

“If it’s handy, but infection is the least of our worries.”

She hurried out of the room.

Will pulled Christine up a little straighter in his arms. She made a small noise, pain or protest or a plea for help. “I know,” he said. “I know. I’m right here.” She was half-conscious at best. He’d have been happier if she hadn’t been conscious at all. “I’m going to help you. It’s going to hurt. A lot.” He cradled her head against his bare shoulder, rubbed her back. “But then you’ll be able to breathe, okay?”

She didn’t respond, except to keep fighting for air.

Julie came back, the thermometer dripping in her hand. “Squad’s on the way,” she said. She sat down behind Christine again. “What do I do?”

“Hold her shirt up, here, Keep her upright,” Will kept one arm around her, too. With the other, he slipped the cover off the thermometer. It was a simple plastic tube, open at both ends, just the right diameter. “Hold this,” he said, giving the cover to Julie. “Right here.” He guided her hand down to Christine’s left side. “Be ready with it.”

He took the thermometer itself, gripped it by the round dial. He resisted the urge to touch the tip; Julie had splashed it with some kind of disinfectant, Scotch from the smell of it, and he already knew it was sharp. He’d stabbed himself with it by accident the week before.

This time it was on purpose.

He put the tip against Christine’s lower left side, toward the back. He found a spot between her ribs. Took a deep breath. And then slammed the tip, hard, through skin and connective tissue and all the way into her lung cavity.

Christine’s teeth sliced into his bare shoulder.

He yanked the thermometer out, grabbed the tube, and shoved it into the puncture.

Blood poured out of the tube and spread across the white sheet. It was bright red, but it poured smoothly, not in gushes; he’s missed any arteries. After the first twenty seconds the flow slowed down. Will grabbed his scope again and listened.

Christine’s left lung began to expand. It was an odd sound, wet and sticky, like a frozen helium balloon. But he could hear air moving into it, through it. In his arms, Christine grew less rigid as her body got the oxygen it had been struggling for. Her breaths became deeper, less rapid. He checked her pupils again. They weren’t there yet, but they were more responsive. Her lips were less blue.

Her chin was covered with blood.

He could hear Julie fighting for breath; she was caught in Christine’s breathing pattern. He was having a little trouble himself. As the adrenalin drained out of his body, he felt shaky. Cold. And his shoulder hurt.

The blood continued to trickle from the tube in her side.

“Okay,” Will finally said. “Okay.” He reached past Christine to touch Julie’s arm. “We’re okay.”

“Yeah,” she said. And then, “She bit you.”

He glanced at his shoulder. There was a wide jagged gash there, bleeding brightly. He could feel liquid running down his back. “Can’t really say I blame her.” He took a deep breath. “Get me a towel, please.”

Julie left the room, came back with a damp washcloth and a dry towel. She wiped off the worst of the blood, then pressed the dry towel to his shoulder. She left again and came back with a t-shirt and jeans for him.

Will nodded as she settled behind Christine again. He shifted their patient into Julie’s arms. “Keep her upright.” Then he slipped away just far enough to get his clothes on.

They both heard sirens, finally.

Christine stirred, opened her eyes. “Fuck,” she murmured.

Will heaved a sigh of relief. Language was a good sign. She’d been severely oxygen-deprived, but it evidently hadn’t gone on for long enough to cause brain damage. Maybe. “Just hang tight,” he told her. He sat back down, pulled her towards him. “You’ll be okay. Talk to me.”

Julie went to let the paramedics in – or rather, Will realized, to tell the security guys to let them in.

“… sorry,” Christine said.

“It’s okay,” Will assured her. She felt warmer. He picked up her hand. Her nail beds were still dusky blue, but they responded to pressure. “It’s okay.”

“I bit you.”

“I stabbed you.” Three words, consecutive and coherent words, was a _very_ good sign.

The paramedics came in, hauling gear. The younger guy took one look and said, “Holy shit.”

Which wasn’t very professional, but when Will looked down, he and Christine were sitting in a pool of what appeared to be an awful lot of blood. White cotton sheets made excellent wicks, spreading the gore. It looked worse than it was.

But it was still pretty bad.

The medics wanted to lay her down to assess her. He didn’t let them; the way her lung had gurgled, he suspected she’d drown in her own blood. He threw his full Doctor Authority Voice at them, something he’d only learned he possessed the year before, when Julie was hurt. He gave them a brisk and concise report. Got her on oxygen, got them to start an IV, got precise vitals instead of his off-the-cuff observation version. Her O2 saturation level hovered at eighty-six percent, which was a point below ‘scary as shit’. But he was sure it was much higher than it had been when he’d found her.

By the time he was done, Julie was in the doorway, fully dressed. “Harold,” she announced, “says New York General if there’s time.”

Will loved her all over again for having had the presence of mind to call his uncle.

 The paramedics glanced at each other. “We’ll need clearance.”

“Then get it.”

“I’m sure,” Julie said, “it won’t be an issue.”

They got her onto the stretcher with her head elevated and carried her out. Will slipped into his shoes, grabbed the coat Julie held ready for him. “I’m riding in with her,” he announced.

By that time the driver had already radioed in, gotten clearance for New York General, and apparently a little background of the residents at the address. “Anything you say, Doctor,” he answered with something closer to reverence than deference.

                                                           x  x  x  x  x 

The trauma doctor was small, dark-skinned, pretty. She was also quick and very efficient. She pulled the drape back and looked at the plastic tube that protruded from between Christine’s ribs, still trickling blood. Then she looked up at Ingram. “You’re the doctor?”

“Will Ingram,” he said.

“Madeleine Enright. Maddy. ” She listened to the lungs on both sides. “Why the left side?”

“I knew the left side was full of blood,” he answered simply. “I have no idea why the right side collapsed. I didn’t have suction available, so draining was a better option.”

She gave him a little smile. “You’ve done some field work.”

“MSF. Nothing _but_ field work.”

Enright’s eyes and touch moved up to the shoulder wound. “Gunshot?”

“Late yesterday afternoon,” Will confirmed. “Treated in the ER and released. I took her home with me so I could keep an eye on her. I checked on her at midnight and her vitals were normal. The wounds weren’t bleeding then. She coughed a little, but it wasn’t wet.”

“They missed a bleeder,” Maddy said. “Maybe swelling blocked it, right after the injury. And when the swelling went down…”

“… she bled into the pleural space,” Will completed. “That was my guess.”

She nodded. “That’s easy enough to repair, and we’ll get a real drain in there. It’s the right lung that concerns me. How long was she oxygen-deprived?”

“Not long, I don’t think. She was briefly coherent after I got the drain in.”

“Good.” She turned and spoke directly, loudly, to her patient. “Christine? Christine?”

Christine stirred, fluttered her eyes open.

“Hi there. I’m Dr. Enright. I know you’re uncomfortable. And I’m guessing you don’t feel like you’re getting enough air. But we’re watching, okay?” She gestured to the monitor. “You’re getting enough oxygen to be safe, for now. And we’ll work on getting you fixed as soon as we figure out what’s wrong. Have you had collapsed lungs before?”

The woman nodded behind the oxygen mask.

“Often?”

She opened her hand, flared her fingers, twice.

“Five? Ten? You’ve never had it treated before?”

Christine shook her head.

“Alright. We’re going to give you something for pain, and then we’re going to get some x-rays, okay?”

She shook her head again. “No opiates.”

Maddy raised an eyebrow. “Are you an addict?”

“She used to be,” Will supplied. “She hasn’t used in ten years.”

“Did you smoke pot?”

Christine nodded. “Little.”

“Crack?”

A nod and a gesture.

“Heroin?”

“Lots.”

Enright nodded. “All right. Thank you.” She touched Christine’s arm. “We’ll be right back.” She pulled Will to the doorway.

“You’re thinking residual damage,” Will said.

“Very possibly. Depending on what she used, in what quantities … the left lung collapsed, the right lung couldn’t handle the additional burden.” She shrugged. “Too soon to tell. Before we take x-rays, is there any chance that she’s pregnant?”

“I … don’t think so.”

“But you’re not sure.” She caught a passing nurse. “Run me a quick blood test, see if she’s pregnant.”

“Right away.”

She turned back to him. “You use contraception?”

Will blinked. “Yes, but … oh. No. She’s not my girlfriend.” He clarified, “And I’m not having sex with her.”

“Oh.” Enright turned a little pink. “I’m sorry, when you said you took her home with her, I assumed … my bad.”

“It’s okay. But we’re just friends.”

“Do you know if she has a medical power of attorney?”

“No idea. I can find out, my Uncle Harold probably knows.”

“She does,” Harold said behind him. Will turned; his uncle was limping down the hall as fast as he could. “I’m named.” He held out the paper to the doctor.

“Dr. Enright,” Will said, “Harold Wren.”

“We’ve met.” She shook his hand lightly. “It’s nice to see you again. Although I’m not crazy about the circumstances.”

“Yes,” he said tightly. “It does always seem to be crisis when we get together. How is she?”

“She’s stable. We’re trying to determine exactly what happened, but for the moment she’s out of danger.”

He sagged. Will took his arm. “Thank you,” Harold said. “Both of you.”

“I haven’t done anything yet,” Maddy protested gently. “But I’ll do everything I can.” She took the paper and glanced at it. “I’ll get this in the chart. Are you a relative?”

“No. We’re just friends.”

She glanced at Will, back at him. “It’s good that you have this, then.”

“She’s conscientious. Can I see her?”

Enright nodded. “For a few minutes. We’re waiting for some tests, and then I want to send her down to radiology. I’ll be back.”

As she moved off, Harold went toward the door and then hesitated. “Are you alright?” Will asked.

His uncle looked at him. He was pale, his mouth in a tight line that said he was struggling not to react. Will became suddenly aware that he had a lot of blood on him. On his shoulder, his arms, his pants. Harold, he remembered, had never been especially good with blood. He squeezed his arm. “She’ll be okay, Uncle Harold. She’s strong, and she’s in really good hands.”

Harold’s expression changed. He looked at him, with such pride and gratitude in his eyes that Will felt his face go hot. “If you hadn’t been there,” he said, “if you hadn’t convinced her to go home with you …”

“We would have made her go home with someone else,” Will reminded him firmly. He didn’t think his uncle needed to know how close it had been. They weren’t lovers, apparently, but there was something about Christine that was very dear to his uncle. If Will hadn’t been there, or someone else with medical training … he shook his head. “Go see her for a minute.”

Harold exhaled, hard, and went into the room.


	14. Chapter 14

_Stable_ , Harold reminded himself, did not mean the same thing as _good_ in hospital terms. It meant that they’d stopped her from circling the drain. That she was holding her own, for the moment.

She was definitely not _good_.

He stood in the doorway for a long time. Christine looked very small, surrounded by all the monitors and equipment. Her face was mostly lost behind the oxygen mask, and despite its hiss she was struggling for breath. Her skin was a peculiar color, white with a hint of blue. Grace would have had a name for that exact shade …

Harold approached the bed with deep loathing. Christine’s eyes were closed. _She’s dying,_ Harold thought, and despair sliced through him. A few hours ago she’d been laughing in delight at a bright whirligig, and now she was …

“Uncle Harold,” Will said quietly. A warm hand landed on his shoulder, squeezed gently. “Try to breathe normally.”

Harold glanced at the young man. Will was right; his own breathing had grown short and choppy, synchronized with hers. He made himself inhale deeply. It helped clear the fog.

She was not dying. She was wounded, badly, but she was not dying. She was not going to die.

Because Maddy Enright was going to save her life. Because he and John had saved Maddy’s wife’s life, and although they had never expected anything in return …

… _save the cheerleader, save the world_ , Christine had told him once, and he’d had to Google it to get the reference …

He took another deep breath. A lifetime ago, in the back seat of a car, she had been nearly this sick and he had touched her hair and it had given her a tiny measure of comfort. He reached out and rested his hand very lightly on her head.

Christine’s eyes fluttered open.  

Her skin was dead white, her lungs weren’t working properly, but her bright blue eyes were as intelligent as ever. Injured as she was, she was still there. “Sorry,” she whispered.

“There’s nothing to be sorry for.”

“ … bit Will.”

Harold glanced over his shoulder again. He’d assumed all the blood on the young man was hers, not his own. She’d _bitten_ him? If the situation were less serious, he might have found that funny.

“It’s okay,” Will told her. “It’ll leave a cool scar. I think I’m going to claim it’s from fighting pirates. Or maybe my mother-in-law.”

She started to laugh, which brought on a cough and an alarming jumble of readings on the monitor.

“Stop, stop,” Harold said, as if that was necessary.

Christine quieted. “ … lot of trouble.”

“You are that,” he allowed. He brushed a strand of hair from her eyes. “But you’re going to be fine.” He nodded. “And so is Will. With his pirate scar.”

This time she smiled instead of laughing. It went much better.

A nurse bustled in, a stout, no-nonsense woman of middle years, and brushed the men back. “Good news,” she said, “you’re not pregnant.” She set to work detaching some equipment, moving other things onto the bed itself.

“’kay,” Christine answered mildly.

“We’re taking you down to radiology.” The nurse glanced at the men again. “We’ll let you know when she comes back up.”

Summarily dismissed, Harold moved into the corridor with his nephew. “She _bit_ you?” he asked.

Will touched his shoulder and hissed. “I stabbed her.”

“You should get that looked at.”

“Yeah, probably.”

He didn’t move. Harold nodded to himself. Christine’s care was out of his hands, for the moment. But he could definitely tend to Will. He took his arm firmly and led him to the front desk. 

                                                             x  x  x  x  x 

The smaller door at the loading dock was locked. It barely slowed Reese down.

Scrubs were easy to find.  He’d brought in his own running shoes from the trunk of his car. He changed quickly, put his own clothes in a patient belonging bag, and hid them behind a laundry bin. The only other thing he needed was an employee ID badge. He couldn’t open any of the hospital security doors without one.

It took him almost two minutes to steal one. He was a bit disappointed in is performance.

He went to the Emergency Department and grabbed a laptop out of an empty treatment bay. Then he walked with his head down, his eyes on the screen, his free hand on the keyboard.

As expected, he moved through the secure hospital like he was invisible.

Tracking Christine down took a little longer, but not much. He simply asked a nurse where she was, absently, as if he were filling in forms. She gestured down the hall. “Still in Radiology.”

“Thanks.”

The route was clearly marked at each hallway intersection. He took the elevator down two floors, turned three corners, and there she was, in the corridor, momentarily unattended.

They had her sitting almost straight upright in the hospital bed, hooked to a dozen monitors and an IV and oxygen, all of which were attached to the rails. Her skin was dead white. Her eyes were closed. Despite the oxygen, she was breathing in short, shallow gasps.

She looked like hell. 

Reese said, “Hey,” very quietly, and touched her arm.

Christine’s eyes fluttered open. “Not a word,” she said murmured.

“Not a word about what?” he asked innocently.

“Anything.”

A technician came into the hall. “Good, you’re here. We’re done, she can go back up to ER. Bay fifteen.”

“You got it,” Reese said. He moved to unlock the wheels of the bed. The tech, satisfied, went back into the other room.

John moved back to the foot of the bed and pushed it toward the elevator.

“I bit Will,” Christine announced as the door closed.

“You _bit_ him?”

“He stabbed me.”

“Sounds like a hell of a party. I’m sorry I missed it.”

“He’s gonna fix the world.”

“Really.” She’d been there for a moment, but John was pretty sure she was drifting out of consciousness now. “In that case, you probably shouldn’t bite him anymore.”

“Million,” she murmured.

“I thought it was billions, with a _B_.”

“Million. Windmills.”

The elevator stopped. Reese backed the bed out of it. “He’s going to fix the world with a million windmills?”

“Uh-huh.” Her eyes closed.

John had heard worse ideas, actually. “Okay.”

“He just needed a … needed a … rubber ducky.”

Now he was certain she was drifting. “Okay, kitten. Just rest.” He reached over the end of the bed and rubbed her foot through the blanket. She wiggled her toes at him.

They moved through the doors and back into the Emergency Department. He wheeled her back to the treatment bay, lined up the bed, and set the locks again.

“John?”

He looked up. Over the mask, she regarded him with her bright blue eyes. For the moment, at least, she was completely aware. “That’s a good color on you.”

“Thanks.”

“You should play doctor more often.”

Reese felt his cheeks go hot. He made a little noise, so caught off guard that he couldn’t form words.

“Now get out of my hospital room.”

He grinned at her, more reassured than he would have thought possible. “See you later.”

                                                           x  x  x  x  x 

Madeleine Enright switched on the light board and stuck the x-ray films up. “I have an answer,” she announced, “about why the right lung collapsed.”

“You don’t sound happy about it,” Will observed. Enright had collected him from another treatment bay, where he’d gotten his shoulder stitched, and summoned Harold from the waiting room.

“It’s not as bad as it could be,” she answered. “It looks like there is _some_ residual lung damage, but it’s not nearly as extensive as I thought it might be. And it’s not what caused the pneumo.”

“Then what did?”

She took out her pen and pointed to a bright white line on one of the ribs. “This is a remodeled fracture,” she told Harold. “You can see that the ends don’t line up quite right.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means the fracture was never treated, and didn’t heal properly.” She cupped her hands and laced her fingers together. “Normally the pleural space – the interior of the rib cage – is fairly smooth, like this. The lungs expand and contract, pushing the ribs out and back, without much gap between them.”

Finch nodded his understanding. He was very aware of Reese’s attentive silence in his ear.

“The ribs should have lined up end-to-end and knit back together,” Enright continued, “but in this case the ends overlapped.” She bent one of her fingers inward. “So one end of the rib protrudes into the space inside the rib cage. It keeps the lung from inflating completely.” She nodded to Will. “You said that earlier today she wasn’t profusing fully. She probably never has, since this injury. I can’t tell for sure from these views, but my guess is that the bone end is jagged. The right lung doesn’t inflate to avoid being punctured. So her O2 capacity is chronically diminished.”

“Can a person do that?” Harold asked. “Just decide not to breathe fully on one side?”

Maddy shook her head. “Not consciously. But this injury is very old. Her body’s learned to compensate.”

“When her left lung collapsed,” Will said, “the right lung tried to take up the slack, by fully inflating.”

“And punctured and collapsed, too,” she confirmed. “You made the right choice, by the way. If you’d tried to drain the right side, it would have just collapsed again without suction.” She shook her head. “She was damn lucky you were there, and that you woke up.”

“Someone called me,” Will answered.

“What?” Harold asked.

“Someone called me. On my cell.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know. Some man. His voice wasn’t familiar.” Will frowned, remembering, then shrugged. “He said I should check on her right away. That she couldn’t breathe.”

Finch stared at him.

“I’m guessing from your silence,” Reese said quietly in his earpiece, “that it wasn’t you. It wasn’t me, either.”

Harold huffed out a brief, alarmed breath.

Enright shrugged. “Whoever it was, he saved her life. Him and you. You did good, Doctor.”

Will colored slightly, then gestured to the images. “So what do we do?”

“First, we repair the bleeding from the bullet wound and drain the remaining blood out of the left chest cavity,” Maddy answered. “Then we have a couple of options. We can put a suction tube on the right side, get the air out, let the lung re-inflate, and monitor it. Or, while we have her sedated, we can re-break that rib, remove the excess bone, and pin it properly. I have a very good ortho surgeon on call; I’d want to have him review the case first, of course. But it should be a relatively minor procedure.”

Harold looked to his nephew.

Will nodded thoughtfully. “It would keep it from happening again.”

“I don’t actually expect Miss Fitzgerald to get shot again,” Harold protested.

“It’s not just trauma that puts her at risk,” Enright said. “Anything that compromises her breathing could be a problem – allergies, a cold, certainly pneumonia.”

“Pregnancy,” Will added. “Even high altitudes. And it will become more of a risk as she gets older.”

Maddy nodded. “Right now she’s young, in good health otherwise, and the lung’s already collapsed. Out of the way. This should be routine.”

“As opposed to trying to do it when it’s an emergency again,” Will agreed. “And she’s going to be laid up with the bullet wound anyhow, she might as well heal from a broken rib at the same time.”

Harold nodded thoughtfully. “I suppose …”

“Do it,” Reese advised in his ear.

“I’ll need you to sign the consent form,” Enright said. She nodded toward the next room. “I don’t think she’s conscious enough for informed consent.”

“Yes,” Finch said. “Of course.” He still hesitated. “If she was Am … if she was a person you cared about, would you authorize this surgery?”

Enright smiled at him gently. “If she were my wife, I would absolutely do this right away.”

“Then let’s proceed.”

“I’ll call in the ortho surgeon. If he agrees with my assessment, I’ll scrub in, make sure the procedure goes as planned and her lung re-inflates properly.”

Harold nodded. “I appreciate that, Doctor.”

She hurried out of the room.

Will moved back to study the x-ray again. He traced his finger over it, first the white line that Enright had pointed out, then others. “I hate to ask, Uncle Harold, but Christine wasn’t a rodeo clown or an MMA fighter or something, was she?”

“She was an abused child,” Harold confirmed quietly.

“I figured.” Will continued to find spots. “I see six, seven fractures here. I’d hate to see what would show up on a full-body scan.” He shook his head. “Is that why she was so insistent on helping that girl today?”

“Mostly, I suppose.” Harold touched Will’s arm. “I’m glad you were there tonight. I can’t even … thank you.”

“Uncle Harold,” he said warmly, with gentle reproof, “she’s important to you. I don’t care how. She’s family, I can tell. Family to you makes her family to me. And family takes care of each other, right?”

Harold felt as if the boy had reached under his ribs and touched his heart – in all its squishiness –but gently, lovingly. “Yes,” he managed to say. “Yes.”

He leaned briefly into his nephew’s embrace. _Family_ , he thought again, and the word filled him with warmth. Despite his anxiety, his fears for Christine and his deep loathing of hospitals, Will was right. They were family, and they would get through this.

Will chuckled. “And that was _before_ we bled all over each other.” 

“Family,” Harold murmured, and hoped that Reese would know that he was a part of it, too.

                                                           x  x  x  x  x 

Dr. Enright watched closely while Harold signed the informed consent documents. She looked around. There was no one else close. She leaned in and whispered anyhow. “Just one question, Mr. Crane or Wren or whatever your name actually is.”

He looked up at her cautiously.

“When she wakes up after this surgery,” she gestured toward Christine’s room, “when she’s fully conscious, is she going to have any idea who you are? Or is this like … what you did for Amy and me?” She looked around again. “Because if it is, I’m okay with that. I probably shouldn’t be, but I am. I’m glad I can help. But if I’m going to cover something, I need to know.”

Harold smiled, small and reassuring. “I assure you, Doctor, that Miss Fitzgerald and I are genuinely friends. She will know me when she wakes up. And she will not object to my having made decisions on her behalf.” He hesitated. “On a limited basis, of course.”

Maddy nodded. “Okay.”

“And I do deeply appreciate your assistance,” he continued. “The matter of my name I know is somewhat confusing …”

She raised a hand. “Not my concern.”

“Thank you.”

“I’ll take good care of her,” Enright said. She gathered up the papers. “I’ll let you know as soon as we’re done.”

She looked at him for a long moment. He knew she was thinking back to those long hours in the operating room, with a terrorist in her ear and her wife’s life on the line, when she’d been forced to rely on two utter strangers for help. She’d been very determined, and very brave.

He remembered what she’d looked like, only her eyes visible above her mask, strong and absolutely confident with a man’s heart lifeless in her hands. Coaxing it back to life with knowledge and skill and certainty …

There were no plans to crack Christine Fitzgerald’s chest open. No need for anything but a few relatively small incisions, a repaired rib and a few stitches. It really was all very minor, compared to the miracle he’d seen this doctor perform. But if things went wrong – as that already had once tonight – there was no one’s hands he would rather have her heart in than Madeleine Enright’s.

“Thank you,” Harold said again.

She nodded, her cheeks pink, and went off to fix Christine.

                                                           x  x  x  x  x 

They had the surgical waiting room to themselves. Julie and Will slumped together on the couch. Harold chose a wingback armchair. He settled into the corner and let his head rest against the wing; it eased the strain on his neck.

He was in considerable discomfort. He’d spent much too much time on his feet, and much too much time tense. He made himself breathe deeply, willing relaxation into the muscles in his neck and shoulder. He closed his eyes for a moment. Then he remembered, opened them, and drew out his phone.

He glanced up at his companions. Will had his eyes closed. Training in the trenches, Harold mused; the young man could probably sleep and wake at a moment’s notice, much like Mr. Reese, but for different reasons. Julie was relaxed at his side, but awake, alert.

He could sleep here and Julie would keep watch.

He knew John was lurking about somewhere as well.

But there was no threat here. Only Christine was in any danger, and she was in the best possible hands. The surgery shouldn’t take long. He should just rest.

Instead, he thumbed his phone on and checked on Grace Hendrick’s e-mail.

She had a dozen new messages since he’d last checked, but there was only one that he was interested in: The one from Gregg Everett _. I really enjoyed meeting you today. I hope you won’t think I’m some kind of weirdo stalker, but I asked Melissa Keynes for your e-mail. I am going home the day after tomorrow and I was hoping I could see you again. Could we get together for dinner? Let me know – or just tell me to go away and I promise I will._

Everett was hopelessly un-poetic. But Harold had to admire his straightforwardness.

Apparently Grace had read his message the same way, because she’d agreed to the date and sent him her phone number.

Harold leaned back. He could check her phone records. Or Everett’s. He shouldn’t. And he shouldn’t hack into the restaurant’s security feeds and watch them. He needed to let them go, to let the relationship develop naturally or not at all.

Gregg Everett would be good for Grace.

He closed his phone, and then he closed his eyes. Yes, he would be good for her. But Harold had done all he could. He had put them together. He needed to let them go.

The Machine had led him to Grace …

He took a deep breath. It hurt to remember. Her smile, that first time he’d spoken to her. So naïve and trusting. So delighted with his unconventional offer of ice cream in the middle of winter. The laughter in her eyes. The joy.

It would never not hurt to remember her. And it would never not hurt to think of someone else sharing that smile, that laughter. That love, that had been his life.

A hand touched his shoulder. Harold opened his eyes, looked up at Julie Carson. “She’ll be okay,” the young woman said earnestly.

She was talking about Christine, he knew, but it applied to Grace as well. He put his hand over hers, smiled wanly. “I know. Thank you.”

                                                           x  x  x  x  x 

John Reese wasn’t entirely sure it was a good idea. He guessed that Finch would say it wasn’t. But as things stood, it seemed inevitable that he would run into her eventually. It seemed best to choose the time and place himself rather than leaving it to chance.

There was a well-stocked kitchenette just to the side of the waiting room. John waited patiently, in the certain knowledge that all operatives, active and retired, eventually seek out coffee. He wasn’t wrong. After the surgery – simple, successful, uneventful, Dr. Enright reported – Harold and Will were allowed back to the recovery room for a brief visit with Christine, and Julie Carson walked into the kitchen. He followed her.

“Hello, Julie,” he said as non-threateningly as he could.

Julie jumped anyhow. She did kind of a mid-air spin and came down facing him. She recognized him immediately. Without taking her eyes off him, she took two steps backward and reached for the coffee pot. But she didn’t pick it up. “What are you doing here?”

Reese stayed where he was, a comfortable distance from her, but in front of the door. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

Julie still had her hand around the handle of the pot. It wouldn’t make a great weapon, Reese thought, but it was the best of her available options. “Are we in danger?” she asked.

By ‘we’ he gathered she meant all of them – her, Will, Harold, Christine. “No,” he promised.

“Then why are you here?” She looked him up and down, taking in the scrubs and the ID badge. He could all but see her realize that he’d been prowling the hospital for hours.

“I thought this would be a good time to talk.” He gestured to the coffee pot. “If you’re not going to hit me with that, could I have a cup?”

She thought about it for a long moment. Then she relaxed a notch and picked up the pot. There were mugs on a decorative little tree; she got two down and poured for both of them.

“Thank you,” Reese said. He took his mug, gestured to the little table, and sat down. After another thoughtful little pause she joined him.

“Are you following me?” Julie asked bluntly. “Again?”

“No. I’m checking on Christine.”

“You know Scotty.”

“We’re friends. How is she?”

“Out of surgery. Out of danger. She should be okay.”

“Good.”

“That’s it?”

“Yes.”

The young woman sipped her coffee. “We never talked about … who you were. Why you were there.”

“Do we need to?” John asked easily.

“Your friend and my fiancé bled all over each other tonight. So yeah, I think we probably do.”

Reese eyed her t-shirt. There were tell-tale little splotches on it, now dried and rust-colored. Will’s blood or Christine’s, it didn’t matter. She wasn’t even aware of it. But in his mind it earned her an explanation or two. “I thought you’d probably see it that way.”

“You work for Harold.” It wasn’t a question.

“Yes.”

“Doing …what?”

“Investigations. Security. Other duties as assigned.”

“What does a successful insurance executive need with a CIA operative?”

“Ex-operative,” he corrected easily. “The aspects of Harold’s business that you know about — that Will knows about — are exactly what they appear to be. But he also insures less conventional clients. Less … visible.”

“Criminals?”

“Not generally. Not if he can help in. But occasionally his clients are threatened by criminal elements. Or they are not precisely what they represent themselves to be. They are more high-risk then his normal clients. Some require security services. Or other specialized attention.”

Julie studied him for a long moment. “I’m supposed to believe that you went from working for Mark Snow to working for Harold Wren.”

Reese shrugged. “Working conditions are better. So’s the pay. He’s dead, by the way.”

“Snow? I heard.” She didn’t let herself be distracted. “Why were you following me last year?”

“I was following Will, initially. After he was kidnapped, the first time, Harold asked me to keep an eye on him. But it became evident pretty quickly that _you_ were the target, not him.”

“Did you tell Harold that?”

“Yes. And he asked me to follow you instead.”

“Why?”

“Because Will was in love with you, and Harold cares about his happiness. Because you’d saved Will’s life.” John shrugged. “Maybe just because Harold likes you. Does it matter? Once he knew you were in danger, he wasn’t about to leave you to the wolves.”

“He could have just told me.”

“By the time we knew about Rudy Gund, Will had already been taken. Again.”

“Will doesn’t know? Any of this?”

“No.” Reese sipped his own coffee. It wasn’t bad. “And if he did, it would very likely do significant damage to his relationship with his uncle.”

Julie rubbed her forehead. “And I’m just supposed to believe all of this.”

“You could ask Harold.”

She looked at him. She still had an op’s instinct; he could read in her expression that she knew Harold would lie to her, too, and probably better than John could. “You called him. The night we went in to get Will. That’s why he was there.”

“Yes.” Reese’s mouth twisted a little. “He was supposed to wait in the car.”

She nodded. “Civilians.” Then she smiled wryly. Technically they were both civilians now, too. “But you’re here for Scotty now.”

“Yes.”

“Will’s not in any danger?”

“That bite might get infected.”

She smirked. “And you know her, Scotty, through Harold?”

“She does some freelance work for him. Occasionally our assignments overlap.”

“You could have just called him for an update.”

“I did. And I’ve seen Christine. But if you and Will and Christine are going to be tight, I thought it might be better if I didn’t surprise you some time in the future.”

Julie nodded slowly. Snow’s dead, but I doubt the CIA has stopped looking for you.”

“No.”

“You’re taking a pretty big risk being here. With all the security and cops and all.”

“Not as big as you might think.” He gestured to the scrubs.

“Are you a thing?”

“A thing?”

“A couple. You and Scotty.”

“We’re friends.”

“You and Harold?”

“Friends.”

“Scotty and Harold?”

“Just friends, as far as I know.”

Julie sighed.

“You’re in love,” John said. “You want everybody to be part of a couple.”

“I suppose so.” She slumped in her chair. “I have had a hell of a long day.” Then she smiled wryly. “I’m not bleeding, I suppose I shouldn’t bitch.”

“You can bitch to me. I’m not bleeding, either.”

“Well, thanks.” She smiled grimly. “What do I tell Will?”

Reese nodded to himself. Julie Carson was on-board. He wasn’t surprised. She was a sensible, practical woman. “John Randall. Security and investigations.”

“For both of them.”

“Yes.”

“That makes sense.” She looked at him again. “You’re not telling me everything, are you?”

“No.”

“Figures.”

“But I’ll tell you what you need to know. You and Will are important to Harold. So you’re important to me. I will never willingly put you in danger, and if there is a threat, I will do everything I can to protect you. Understand?”

“Why?”

“I have my reasons. But the only one you need to know is this. I used to work for Mark Snow.” Reese smiled tightly, a little crookedly. “And working for Harold is better.”

Julie half-smiled, shrugged. “I’m sure it is.”

 

 


	15. Chapter 15

Finch moved through the loft quietly. He could hear the air handlers purring softly; if he paid attention, he could hear the hum of the water filters on the pool. But there was no one here.

He’d suggested that Will and Julie enjoy a long, leisurely breakfast. They’d wearily embraced his suggestion. It had been a long night for everyone. The sun had risen before they got Christine settled in her room. But she was safe and stable, and asleep when they left the hospital.

He went first to Will’s old bedroom. The bed was unmade; Will’s dirty clothes were still on the floor, directly in front of the hamper. Harold shook his head fondly. Then he looked to the side table and picked up his nephew’s phone.

As he’d expected, the last call was from a blocked number. It didn’t matter. He knew, with about ninety percent certainty, who had called.

He put the phone down and went across the hall to Nathan’s old bedroom.

The smell stopped him at the doorway. Somehow he hadn’t expected the smell. But it was there, rust and copper, the unmistakable smell of human blood. He made himself look at the bed. Most of the visibly surface was dark red. The white sheets, the pale blue comforter. The pillows. The mattress. Christine’s blood, and a bit of Will’s.

When Harold was young, there had been a ritual between boys. Blood brothers. A little cut on each boy’s thumb, the cuts pressed together so that the blood was shared. He’d found it a repulsive notion then, and with the advent of so many blood-borne pathogens, he felt vindicated in that belief. But he’d recognized the power of the ritual, even as a child.

Christine Fitzgerald would henceforth always trust the young man who’d been willing to stab her in order to give her breath. And Will Ingram would, perhaps perversely, always trust a woman who’d bitten him to the bone and clung to him at the same time. Harold had wanted them to be close. He would not have contemplated a scenario as extreme as this one to accomplish that goal. But they were now undeniably, irrevocably bonded.   

And being those two, he thought, looking at the blood-soaked bed, a few drops of blood wouldn’t have been enough to accomplish that.

He made a mental note to call the cleaning service when he left.

Reluctantly, he walked toward the bed. His foot landed on something and he paused. A meat thermometer rested in the deep carpet. There was a little smear of blood on it, too.

Harold’s stomach lurched. He swallowed hard to keep from vomiting.

At the side of the bed he turned and looked toward the ceiling. There, well-concealed in the ceiling texturing, was a tiny surveillance camera. It was not visible. He knew it was there only because he’d installed it.

It had been bad enough that his partner and friend invited personal scandal by entertaining a parade of young women in his bedroom. Harold had been unwilling to risk the professional chaos that might have ensued if one of them had decided to claim that the sex was non-consensual. Nathan had never known about the cameras, and the well-protected feeds had been inactive since shortly after his death.

But Finch already knew that they were not inactive now.

He stared at the invisible camera for a long moment. Then he spoke directly to it, clearly and calmly, “You can’t do that again. You job is to protect _everyone_ now. Not just her.”

He counted under his breath. Nine seconds passed, and then the land-line phone at the side of the bed rang. A good choice, he thought. Hard to trace, as long as the call remained short, Easy to mask. Finch snatched it up.

The man who had been Nicholas Donnelly, and was now well on his way to being someone else, said, “Should I have let her die?”

“You shouldn’t be watching her at all.”

“She lives or the deal’s off.”

There was no room for negotiation in the former agent’s tone. “ _I_ protect her,” Finch insisted. “Your surveillance may very well put her in danger.”

“Then you’ll have to protect her from that, too. I’m sure you’ll manage … Mr. Smith.”

The call went dead. Finch cradled the phone, glanced at the camera again. Then he pulled out his own phone and remotely disconnected the camera feeds.

He could not bear to be in the same room with the blood. The smell was overwhelming. He walked slowly down to the living room.

He had expected to hear from Donnelly eventually. The agent had not seemed to recognize him in the hospital when they’d met, but Finch knew the man had seen him at the Christine’s movie party on Christmas day, and that he’d remember at some point. As the agent progressed through his surgeries and through his exhaustive background screenings, he’d gained access to more and more technology, and with it access to more information. He didn’t know everything yet, but he would eventually be in a place where he could.

Nicholas Donnelly did not see the worlds in shades of gray. Everything for the former FBI agent had been black or white. Finch had realized very early that the man would need to be kept completely in the dark about their operation – or else he would need to know everything. The former, of course, had been his preference. But after Reese’s arrest and interrogation, and after Donnelly had learned of their connection to Detective Carter, only the later remained as an available option.

That, or letting him die from his injuries on the scene, and Finch had been unwilling to make that choice.

So – Donnelly would go to the heart of the government. He would work in the Den, a division that did not technically exist. He would receive intelligence directly from Research, their name for the Machine. He would work the relevant numbers. He would be positioned to directly see the results of his work. He would save lives.

He would also, undoubtedly, figure out that his raw data was not coming from a group of people at all. He would eventually guess at the true nature of the Machine, as Henry Peck and Christine Fitzgerald had done before him. But by then, Finch devotedly hoped, he would have seen enough results to continue his work in the program.

If he didn’t, Finch knew, the people around him would terminate his life before he could reach the whistle he intended to blow.

And if his relentless research led him to discover the true goal of the Man in the Suit, the same logic applied. He would not have believed them if they’d told him the truth. But if he discovered the truth for himself, through his own research, he might believe that.

It had all been carefully planned, calculated to the last detail. Donnelly would live and continue to protect his country, or he would die, quietly, by the hand of his own government. It was the best arrangement Finch could make for a man who refused to allow shades of gray.

But Finch had missed one crucial factor.

He had not planned on Donnelly’s continued interest in Christine Fitzgerald.

Christine had told the agent off once, and kissed him once. They’d seen old movies together. They’d become friends. But as far as Finch had been able to determine, that had been the extent of their relationship. Christine had set Nicholas up on a blind date with one of her friends. Donnelly had dated Theresa Ramos a number of times before his ‘death’, and Finch was fairly certain they’d been intimate on at least two occasions. So why was the former agent now potentially compromising his new identity to keep watch over Christine? And how far did his surveillance extend?

Not far, Finch realized. Christine was ferociously security-conscious. Even Harold wasn’t able to watch her inside her apartment unless she specifically allowed it. On the streets, in public, of course she was visible, but she was also aware of her visibility and appropriately cautious. So why now?

Because, Finch realized, her name had probably turned up on police reports. And Donnelly likely had her tagged there, just as Harold did. He’d known she’d been shot. He’d learned that she’d gone home with Will Ingram, probably from the hospital systems. And the old security system in Nathan’s loft had been, frankly, neglected.

The ‘how’ he understood. The ‘why’ still eluded him.

All of which led Harold back to the agent’s question: _Should I have let her die?_

He remembered the meat thermometer on the floor of the bedroom. He could recover the surveillance feed and replay the events of the previous night, but he wouldn’t. He could imagine it well enough.

If Donnelly hadn’t called and alerted Will, Christine Fitzgerald very likely would have died.

And yet Finch resented it to his very core. He’d meant what he said. _He_ would protect her.

He and John Reese, of course, he amended mentally.

It was still puzzling. If it had been Reese that Donnelly was trying to keep close tabs on, or Carter, he would have understood it. If Donnelly had been trying to find him -- but why Christine?

He had a notion that this was one of the mysteries of the human heart that he’d spoken to Henry Peck about. That there was no quantifiable answer at all.

Very well, then, he thought. Nicholas Donnelly was good. Harold Finch was better. He would do everything he could to prevent any unauthorized surveillance of the young woman. She would continue to do a lot of it on her own, of course, but Harold would be more attentive going forward. More proactive about protection. Starting, he decided, with the hospital where she was recovering now.

He went out to his waiting car. From the back seat, he called the cleaning service. Then he called Will to tell him that he’d called them. Then he opened his laptop and hacked into the hospital’s security system.

                                                           x  x  x  x  x 

The guy in the pawn shop came all the way to the front window and looked both ways, up and down the street, before he buzzed Taylor in. Checking for his crew, the teenager knew, making sure they wouldn’t shoulder in while the lock was off. He shrugged. It happened all the time. Once he was inside, he made sure to push the door tightly closed behind him.

The guy made a little face, almost a smile, and moved back behind the counter. “Help you?” he asked.

Taylor nodded and stepped up to the counter. “I need a ring,” he said.

“Engagement ring?” the man asked without surprise.

“Yeah. Or … something that would work as one, until I can buy a better one.” He didn’t see any point in wasting the guy’s time. “I have a hundred and eighty-nine dollars, total.” Birthday money, Christmas money, a little he had left from working as one of Scotty’s elves over winter break. He’d already spent most of that money on dates with Tia.

The guy raised an eyebrow at him. “Not much to work with.”

“I know, sir.”

“She knocked up?”

Taylor swallowed. “Yes, sir.”

The guy stared at him for a minute. The young man could almost see him turning it over in his head. Young black kid, not out of high school, cutting class, less than two hundred bucks to his name, and a baby on the way.

But on the other hand, he was buying her a ring.

Taylor wondered what the man would think if he knew it wasn’t even his baby.

“Might be able to help you,” he finally said. He gestured toward the end of the counter, to a showcase with inch-thick glass on the top. He checked out the front window one more time, then used his key to open the case and brought out a faded velvet tray of rings. “This side, there are fakes. These are genuine. Tiny, mostly. Sell you any one of these for one-fifty and tax.”

The teenager nodded and peered at the rings. The stones were all different colors, red and blue and green and clear diamond-like ones. The fakes were much bigger, fancier. He didn’t think Tia would know the difference. But he would. The ones with real stones – at least the guy said they were real, but Taylor wouldn’t know, either – were really small. All the real diamonds were tiny.

But there was a ring up in the corner that caught his eye. It was old, silver, he thought, and had a fancy set, a red stone and four tiny diamond chips, two one each side. It was pretty. Elegant. He pointed without touching it. “That one?”

The man took it out of the tray and handed it to him. “Kinda old-fashioned.”

“Yeah.” He held the ring between his fingertips, turned it over. It was surprisingly heavy. He hoped the man wouldn’t notice that his hands were shaking. “I think she’d like it.”

“You can always have the stone remounted, once you get settled, have a little more money.”

Taylor looked at him. _I am going to work for minimum wage for the rest of my life_ , he thought bleakly. _There will never money for things like new rings_. He swallowed, handed the ring back, and reached for his wallet.

The man dug around a drawer in the back and came up with a ring box. It was gold and just a little worn at the edges. He put the ring in, watched while Taylor counted out bills. When he got to a hundred and fifty, he put his hand down on the stack. “I’ll eat the tax,” he said. He slid the gold box across.

“I …” Taylor wanted to stand on principle, but he realized immediately that every small savings was important from now on. “Thank you, sir.”

“Good luck, kid.”

Taylor pocketed the ring and left the shop.

                                                           x  x  x  x  x 

Reese tensed the moment he heard the earwhig click, but Finch’s voice was calm. “Good morning, Mr. Reese.”

“Finch. How’s our girl?”

“Still asleep, hopefully.”

Reese glanced at his watch. It was nearly noon, but then Christine had been in surgery until almost dawn. “Think she’ll stay put now?”

“For a while, at least.”

“Did you figure out who made the call?”

“I have. No cause for concern.”

“Skydd?”

Finch made a noncommittal noise. “How’s Detective Geis?”

“Patient.” Reese turned his head and looked diagonally across the street. Geis was sitting in his rental car, parked just down the street from the shabby apartment building where the prostitutes lived. Like Reese, the man was motionless, relaxed. Waiting.

The man had come down to breakfast with a small shopping bag. Reese had checked his room while he ate. Both the handgun and the duct tape were gone.

“I found the DNA test he ran,” Finch said.

“Finally break into the police system?”

“No. I broke into the lab they use. It was much more modern, and therefore more easily exploited.”

“What’d you find?”

“Each DNA sample that’s sent to the lab is marked with a case number and the office requesting the test. Two years ago, Detective Geis worked what looks to be a very complex case, for which he sent eleven different samples to the lab. Each had the same case number, and was then appended with a sample number, which allowed for …   

“Finch.”

“One of the requests contained two samples, one from blood type O-negative and one from type AB-negative. There was no DNA match between them.”

“So he proved what he already knew. Kimberly wasn’t his mother.”

“The eleventh sample sent on that same case number,” Finch went on, “was two samples from type O-negative. One was fresh blood. The other was noted to be aged and degraded. There was significant matching between them.”

Reese sat back, frowning. “So his father really was his father?”

“Assuming the older blood sample came from Patrick Geis – and it was identified with the initials ‘PG’ on the request, then no, he was not Eric’s father,” Finch said with something like relish. “The matching percentage wasn’t high enough for that. But they were definitely related. It’s very possible that _Daniel_ Geis was actually the father.”

“His uncle.” Reese whistled softly. “Then who’s his mother?”

“Perhaps,” Finch said slowly, “that’s the question Detective Geis would like to ask, as well.”

John tipped his head a little and studied the man again. He’d been an attentive son, a good cop. The gun suggested that he was out for revenge. But the duct tape … he could be planning on restraining witnesses. But he could, in fact, be looking for information.

“If that’s what he wants,” Reese said, “I think he has the right to know.”

“Mr. Reese?” Finch’s voice hit the high key, the one that said he knew Reese was about to do something foolish and probably dangerous.

“It’ll be okay, Finch,” he said. He got out of the car.

                                                           x  x  x  x  x 

Lee Fusco stumbled out of his room, rumpled and confused, blinking in the bright sunlight. “Dad?”

Lionel looked up from the papers scattered on the dining room table. “Hey, Sport. I was gonna send a search team pretty soon.”

The boy squinted at him. “I’m late for school.”

“I called you off. Called myself off, too.” Fusco gathered the papers and shoved them into a manila folder. It was just routine stuff, reports; it could wait.

“Mom’ll be pissed.”

“Lee.”

“Mad. Mom’ll be mad.”

“I talked it over with her,” Fusco said. “She’s okay.”

“You told her about Marisa.”

“Yeah.” Fusco rubbed his jaw. “I, uh, left out the part about the dentist appointment. And Chaos. And Christine. ‘Cause she really _would_ be pissed them.”

The boy looked at his feet. “Sorry, Dad.”

“I’m not mad,” Lionel said. “But we need to talk about some things, okay?”

“Yeah.”

They’d spent the evening before talking about Marisa and her situation, until the boy was exhausted. Fusco had decided their own issues would wait. “Why don’t you grab a quick shower and then we’ll go get some breakfast, or brunch, or whatever you want to call it.”

Lee looked up. “Lyric?”

“Sure.”

“Cool.” The boy smiled a little, reassured. “Be right back.”

“Wash your hair,” Fusco called after him. The boy tended to ‘forget’ when he was in a hurry, thinking that just wetting his hair down was sufficient. It wasn’t, not with hair like his.

“Yeah, yeah.”

Lionel sat back and sipped his coffee. It was cold; he got up and dumped it in the sink. He thought about pouring himself another cup, then decided he’d wait until they got to breakfast.

Coffee, of course, brought him around to thinking about Chrissy Fitzgerald. He wondered if he should call her. Probably not. From what Finch had told him that morning, she wouldn’t be answering any calls for a while. He shook his head. She’d seemed fine when she left the ER the day before, and now it sounded like if Ingram hadn’t been right there … they’d dodged a bullet there, big time.

It was crazy. After all the shit she’d been through in her life, after all the chances she’d taken, all the ways she could have died, to get shot and almost killed in a police precinct, with a dozen cops standing around her, when she wasn’t even under arrest – it was just ridiculous.

He’d go see her in the evening, after he took Lee back to his mom’s, he decided. Probably stop in quick with some flowers. Stick his head in, just to let her know he was thinking about her.

He hadn’t told Lee she was back in the hospital. He probably should, he decided. If they were going to do this whole honestly thing, it needed to cut both ways. Within limits, of course. There were things a ten year-old boy didn’t need to know about his father. A lot of things. Especially if his father was a crooked cop trying to get straightened out … who was helping a vigilante and his mad genius friend …

Fusco shook his head. No, a little truth here would have to go a long way.

                                                           x  x  x  x  x 

Reese was half-way to the target’s car when a cab pulled up in front of the hotel and three drunk and unattractive people got out. Two were women, apparently the aging prostitutes. The third was an old man with a shock of gray-red hair in an untidy fringe around his bald head.

The old man paid the cabby, then waited for his change. “Don’t be rippin’ me off, either, you fuckin’ towelhead.” The women passed a bottle between them. None of them noticed Reese approaching them. None of them noticed Red Geis, either, though he was out of his car and closing fast.

But Geis noticed Reese and stopped dead.

The drunken trio went inside.

Geis looked after them. Then he looked back at Reese. They were ten feet apart.

“I won’t let you kill him,” Reese said firmly.

The man’s fingers twitched, but he kept his hands at his sides. His mouth twitched, too. But he had the grace and good sense not to lie. “He deserves to die.”

“Very possibly. But you don’t deserve to have his blood on your hands.” John kept his own hands loose and visible.

“You some friend of his?”

“I don’t think he has any friends.”

Reese could see the man measuring him up. Geis was older, heavier, probably slower. But he’d had years of experience. His weight could be used to his advantage. And – John could see it in his eyes – he didn’t think he had anything to loose. “Don’t,” he advised quietly.

“I didn’t come all this way,” Geis said calmly, “to go home empty-handed.”

“You want answers from him,” John said. It was not a question. “I’ll help you get them.”

“Who the hell are you?”

“Consider me your back-up.” He half-turned toward the front door of the hotel.

Geis took two steps and swung at him. Reese ducked beneath the wide overhand arc and threw a short jab into the man’s ribs. The detective grabbed his shoulder and arm before he could straighten and they grappled. He was strong, as John had guessed. He clearly expected Reese to give up once he got his elbow in a joint lock. Instead, Reese threw three more jabs with his free hand.

Geis said “ooooff” and let him go.

They stood on the sidewalk, now five feet apart, hands down and open again, and watched each other.

Geis was sucking quietly for air. Reese resisted the urge to rub his shoulder and elbow.

“Who are you?” the detective finally asked again.

John shook his head. “You want answers from me or from him?”

It took the man another minute to decide. Then he moved warily in front of Reese to the front door.

 

 


	16. Chapter 16

Daniel Geis took one look at Eric and tried to slam the door on him. The cop shouldered it open. The old man swung a beer bottle at him. Reese grabbed it in mid-air. The beer poured out of the bottle and down his sleeve. It was piss-warm.

Reese had other shirts and other jackets, but that wasn’t the point. He twisted the old man’s arm into a lock and forced him into a rickety wooden chair. “Duct tape,” he said.

Danny tried to kick him. Reese put one knee on the man’s thigh, and leaned on it hard. The old man whimpered, but he quit fighting.

He smelled like he’d been lost in a distillery for a week.

Red Geis brought out his duct tape and bound the man to the chair.

“Six,” Reese said casually. Geis turned and grabbed the hand of the hooker that was swinging at him. He shoved her away and went back to taping.

The other woman came at him with a rusty pair of scissors. John released the half-bound man and grabbed her by both wrists. She was very skinny; it felt like he was holding chicken bones between his fingers.

“That’s right,” Danny said, “you get him, Juney. Don’t let them treat me like this.”

“Shut up,” Geis said.

The woman tried to slap at Reese. He held her hands over her head and marched her to the door. “You can get out,” he offered, “or you can get tied up with him. Your choice.”

She glared at him. Then she jerked her head toward the door. “Ought to call the cops.”

“Oh, please do,” the detective answered.

The other woman followed her out. “This is our room,” she complained. “You can’t just kick us out.”

“We’ll be done in a few minutes,” Reese said calmly. “We’ll try not to break anything.” He closed the door. The lock was crap. He pulled the other straight chair over in front of it and sat down.

The drunk was bound by then, hands and feet. He glared at Eric, then at Reese. “Who the fuck are you?” he demanded.

“I’m the door guy,” Reese answered.

“I guess,” Red said, “you don’t need to ask who I am.”

The drunk looked at him, then turned his head away. “What do you want?”

Reese watched the detective closely. He was a big man, tough, weathered. But for an instant the expression on his face was that of a lost child. He could almost hear the man’s plaintive thoughts. _What do I want? I want my life back. The way I thought it was. The way it should have been._ John sympathized. But he also watched the big fists the cop balled his hands into. 

It wouldn’t take a gun to kill the brittle old man taped in the chair. It wouldn’t take much at all.

Geis looked over at him, and his expression shifted. Suddenly he was a cop again. He leaned against the arm of the couch in front of Danny, relaxed, his hands clasped loosely and hanging in front of him. ‘What happened to the baby?” he finally asked, quietly.

Danny wouldn’t meet his eyes. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Baby Eric,” Geis said patiently. “Kimberly and Patrick’s son. Your nephew. The baby. What happened to him?”

“You can’t prove nothin’.”

Geis shuddered as if he’d been hit. He looked at the floor for a moment. When he looked back up, he was in control. “What happened to the baby?” he asked again, calmly.

Daniel didn’t answer.

Reese reached over to the table by the door, picked up the whiskey bottle, uncapped it, and began to pour the contents out onto the thin carpet.

“Stop it!” the drunk shouted. “You know how much that stuff costs?”

As it happened, John knew exactly how much it cost. Or at least how much it had cost three years ago, when he was still panhandling for coins to buy it. He also knew how raw it tasted, how it burned all the way down. And how it wrapped the brain in a blanket of not-caring.

He stopped pouring, but kept the bottle in his hand.

The old man looked at Geis. Looked at John again. Looked at the ceiling. “He wouldn’t stop crying. We gave him a bottle, but he wouldn’t shut up.”

“So you killed him.”

The man shrugged. “We were drinkin’. Me and Pat both.”

“What did you do with the body?”

“What difference does it make?”

“What did you do with the body?” Geis asked again.

“I ain’t telling you shit, you little bastard. You had a home to grow up in. I know Kimmy took care of you. Just be glad for that and forget about the rest.”

The detective shifted his feet a little. “What did you do with the body?” he asked for a third time. His voice was dead calm.

“Ah, fuck you.”

Reese stood up.

He didn’t move any closer to the man. He put the bottle down and dropped his hands to his sides, open. He stood very still.

Daniel’s eyes went wide. Drunks, like their children, had finely-honed survival instincts.

“We put it in a pillow case,” he said quickly. “There was this place outside, right by the chimney, the gutter was busted and the water came down and made this little hole. We put it in there and threw some bricks and dirt over it. Figured all that water running over it, it’d wash everything away, keep the smell down. And plus we didn’t have to dig.” He shrugged. “Doesn’t matter now, anyhow. House burned down years ago.”

Geis nodded. “And where …” His voice threatened to crack and he stopped, looked at his feet. His hands stayed in front of him, but they clenched tightly.

“Where did you find the other baby?” Reese asked.

Danny laughed harshly. “The bastard? I told you. He’s a bastard. Found him under my own damn roof.”

Geis flinched again and didn’t look up.

“So you replaced the infant you murdered with your own son,” Reese continued.

“Had to do something,” the drunk told him. “Kimmy wouldn’t shut the fuck up about him. Crying all the time, crazy bitch.”

“Who was my mother?” Geis asked quietly.

“Your mother was a _whore_!” Danny answered with apparent glee. “Your mother was a whore, and your father was, well, you see what your father was, and what the fuck does that make _you_ , you little bastard?”  

Red looked up. His face was expressionless, but in his eyes was a look John knew well. He’d seen it in his own mirror, too often. He stepped between the detective and the old man. “No.”

The cop stared into his eyes. There was an instant that looked like relief. Reese knew that feeling, too. The bitter pleasure of giving up, when someone stronger or better stopped him from doing something he knew he’d regret the instant it was done. “Where is she?” he asked Danny, still looking at Reese.

“She’s in hell,” Danny cackled. “Slit her wrists, the crazy bitch.”

Geis stood up. John stood his ground.

There was a thump at the door and then it burst open. The prostitute who’d had the scissors stumbled in, then got herself upright and smacked Daniel, hard. Then she slapped him back the other way. “You fucking liar!” she shouted. “You said she left town!”

He grinned, though his lip was bloody. “I lied. Go figure that, a pimp who lies to a whore.”

She hit him again. Reese glanced over his shoulder, but he couldn’t afford to divert much attention from Geis. The detective still had the smoldering thousand-yard stare going.

The other prostitute tried to stop her. “Leave him alone, Juney. He didn’t do nothin’, it’s these guys.”

“You heard him,” she shrieked She clawed at her co-worker until the woman backed off. “He took Honey’s baby. He said he gave her money, sent her and the baby away. And all the time he took him – he took Honey’s little boy! You fucking bastard!”

She launched herself at him again. Reese continued to watch over his shoulder. She was skinny and her technique wasn’t good. Also, she was fairly drunk. He didn’t interfere. In a few minutes she was too tired to keep hitting the old man.

Eric Geis didn’t move, didn’t speak through all of it.

The ragged woman finally stopped. She dropped her arms to her sides and stood still, swaying a little. She’d been crying with rage; it transitioned to grief. Daniel’s face was battered, bloody, but his injuries weren’t life-threatening by any means. Reese watched Red Geis and waited.

The detective finally took a deep breath. He moved past Reese and put his arm around the woman’s skinny shoulders. He walked her back to the couch, sat her down gently, and sat beside her. He gave her his handkerchief, clean and white and neatly folded. “Tell me about Honey,” he said, very softly.

The prostitute unfolded the handkerchief slowly and wiped her face. Then she started crying all over again. “She lived down the street from me,” she said. “Always nice to us kids. She was nothing special. Just a streetwalker, like I am now. Nothing special to nobody. Never had nothin’, never knew nothin’. But she loved that baby of hers. Oh, she loved that baby.”

“He was my kid, too,” Danny protested. “Don’t I get no fuckin’ credit for that?”

Reese hit him hard enough to knock him out.

                                                           x  x  x  x  x 

There wasn’t much left of the house. A fire had destroyed it years before, and the ruins were grown over with weeds and buried in trash. But enough of the chimney still stood to make it easy to locate. The sun was going down, but there was a warm golden glow over the yard as the police dug.

The pillowcase was rolled up, tied with butcher string that had probably been tight when it went into the ground. Now the string made loose loops around the mostly-empty linen. Four purple-gloved hands held it up gently, supporting the delicate contents. Carter aimed her flashlight through the fabric. They saw the outlines of tiny bones, a tiny skull. They placed the entire package in the smallest body bag they had. It was still much too big.

The detective looked up toward the west, into the sun, and nodded. Then she gestured and they carried the little bag to the waiting coroner’s van.

                                                           x  x  x  x  x 

Eric Geis – the man who had been called Eric Geis all his life, at any rate, watched as the gold light behind him turned toward red. “So,” he finally said. “He was telling the truth.”

“I’m sorry,” Reese said quietly.

“Damnedest thing,” Geis said. “I thought this would be … something. I don’t know. Big, Dramatic. And it’s just … a bag of tiny bones.”

“It’s more than that,” John assured him.

“That’s Eric Geis,” the man said, pointing. “I thought I was, but … that’s him. The woman I thought was my mother is dead. The woman who really was my mother is dead. The man who I thought was my father was really my uncle, and he’s dead. And the son of a bitch who was my real father …”

“Is going to jail for life.”

Geis glanced at him. “And how long will that be? Five years? Ten?” He shook his head. “My mother …” He paused, then went ahead, “ _My mother_ lived her whole life in doubt. She loved me. She loved me the best way she could. But she always doubted. And once I was old enough to know … I doubted, too. Always. And now I know the truth, I know she was right.” He was quiet for a moment. “I didn’t even ask him my real name. I don’t know who I am anymore.”

John watched the coroner’s van drive away. Carter lingered, taking a few more notes at the scene. Not that there was much evidence there, besides the remains. Not that any was needed, with Daniel Geis’ confession. But she was thorough, always. “Who do you want to be?”

“What?”

“Your past, all those doubts. That’s over now. Settled. It’s not good, but it’s settled. Everybody you had ties to, for good or ill, is gone. So it’s up to you. Who do you want to be?”

The man stared at him. “What, you think I can just start over?”

“If you want to,” Reese answered. “Other men have done it.”

Geis stared toward the quiet little crime scene again.

“Or,” Reese continued, “you can be who you already are. You can be Red Geis, the detective. The good cop who brings bad guys to justice. The one who protects people.”

“I was going to kill him,” Geis said tightly. “I don’t think I can call myself a good cop anymore.”

“You _didn’t_ kill him,” Reese pointed out.

“I would have. If you hadn’t been there.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. Either way – you didn’t.”

Geis finally managed to look away from the rubble of his childhood home. He turned and walked away slowly. He kept his eyes straight ahead. Reese doubted that he was seeing anything around him. He stayed at Geis’ shoulder, let the man process for a while. Finally Geis said, “I don’t even know who you are.”

“Someone who wants to help.”

The detective turned and studied him for a moment. “Not used to being beholden to strangers.”

“You’re not.”

“I am.” The man nodded thoughtfully. “I am. And I don’t think there’ll ever be a way to pay you back.”

John shrugged, uncomfortable.

“And that being the case … I might as well ask one more favor of you.”

 Reese nodded, gestured. “My car’s over there.”

                                                           x  x  x  x  x 

There were no individual grave markers, just one plain white monument at the center of a wide grassy space at the back of the old cemetery. Geis looked at it bleakly. His mother, his real mother, was buried here somewhere, in a plain pine box that had likely been placed in a trench next to another plain pine box.

It could be worse, Reese thought. She could be out at Hart Island. But he didn’t say anything.

The woman’s name, Harold had been able to determine, was Beverly Davis. Daniel Geis had called her Honey. He’d been her pimp. He’d gotten her pregnant. The baby had apparently been born at home; there was no birth certificate. And when he took her baby away from her, to replace the infant he’d killed in a drunken rage, Honey had killed herself.

Daniel hadn’t even paid to bury her.

Reese knew Geis was feeling all of that. He waited by the car, in the growing darkness, and left the man alone. 

The cemetery closed at dusk. John had slipped a hundred dollars to the night watchman to let them come up. They could stay as long as they wanted to. As long as Geis needed to.

But it was cold. John turned up the collar of his coat, slipped on his gloves. A fine coat, a cashmere blend. Fine leather gloves. All courtesy of a man who had been a stranger not long ago. A man who had given him a purpose, and a job. And clothes. And everything else he needed.

A man who, if he was able, would make sure John Reese didn’t end up in a pine box in a trench grave with no marker. His headstone, Reese was confident, would be elegantly understated and achingly expensive. And it would have his real name on it.

Unless Finch went first.

He didn’t know, even now, what name to put on Finch’s headstone.

Geis turned away from the simple monument and joined him at the car. “Thank you,” he said quietly.

Reese nodded. “Who’s Cindy Summers?” he asked.

The man’s head snapped up. “Cindy?”

“She’s worried about you.”

“Cindy?” Geis asked again, clearly surprised. “But she’s …” He starred at Reese. “No.”

“Check your phone.”

Reese pretended not to notice that the veteran detective’s hand shook as he brought his phone out and checked the missed called. After a long time, the man said, “Oh.”

“Could be nothing,” John said. “But maybe you should give her a call.”

“I … yeah.” The man took a few aimless steps along the little dirt road, still staring at the tiny screen. Then he came back. “She brings me a little casserole every Monday. Says I eat too much junk food.” He shook his head. “Every Monday. Some crack detective I am.”

“The ones that are close,” Reese said, “are the ones that are easy to miss.”

“Uh-huh.” Geis stared at his phone another minute, then put it away. “I should get back,” he said simply.

Reese drove him to his hotel, and then to the train station. It was two hours before the train headed west, but Geis didn’t seem to need any company. He was lost in his thoughts, in regrets and maybe in some new dawning hopes. John resisted the urge to ask if the casseroles were any good. It really didn’t matter. It didn’t matter at all.

                                                           x  x  x  x  x 

Joss Carter got home at a decent hour for once. As she walked up to her front door, it opened and Taylor’s ex-girlfriend hurried out.

“Hey, Tia,” she began.

The girl had her head down. “Hey, Miz Carter,” she sniffed. Then she ran past her down the steps.

Carter turned and watched her. A white Pontiac pulled up and stopped, double-parked. The detective recognized the car; it belonged to Tia’s dad. The girl got in the front seat, still with her head down. Joss waved, and the girl’s father waved back as he drove away.

She frowned until the car was turned at the corner. Then she went inside.

Taylor was sitting on the couch with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. There was a small gold box on the coffee table.

“What’s going on, Taylor?” Carter asked as she closed the door. She put down her bag, dropped her coat over the chair.

He didn’t look up. “Nothing, Mom.”

She sat down next to him, put her hand on her back. “What was Tia doing here?”

“She was … she …” Taylor took a deep breath and sat back. His eyes were red and wet. “I asked her to marry me.”

Carter stared at him. She wanted to laugh. She wanted to think it was a joke. But she felt like her son had slapped her; her body knew he was serious, even if her mind didn’t want to accept it. “You _what_?”

Taylor flinched at her tone, but he didn’t look away. “She might be pregnant.”

Joss opened her mouth. Then she closed it and made herself sit still. She could hear her pulse pounding in her ears. For a minute she couldn’t hear anything else. Her hands were cold. She shook her head firmly. This was not the time to get shocky. “So you two are back together?” she asked carefully.

“No. I mean, we weren’t, but … no.” The boy turned his gaze away and stared at the floor. “She’s not even sure yet. But if she is, it isn’t mine.”

“Then what …”

“It doesn’t matter, Mom,” he said quickly. His eyes came up to meet hers again. “It doesn’t matter. I care about her. I think I might love her. And this Damon guy, he won’t … he won’t stand up. He just won’t.”

Joss put her hand over her eyes. She squeezed her temples with her thumb and fingers. She wondered if she could squeeze hard enough to just crush her brain. It seemed like a good alternative to finishing this conversation. “So you’re gonna give up college, give up your future, to raise a baby that’s not yours, because Tia got with a guy who won’t stick by her?”

“You said, Mom.”

She looked up sharply. Taylor’s eyes were full of tears again, but he didn’t look away “You said that people make mistakes and we should try to help them fix them.”

“I didn’t mean …” She stopped. She didn’t mean what? That he shouldn’t risk his entire future to help this girl fix her mistake? That he shouldn’t put the rest of his life on the line for her?

Some day her son might find out what Joss had done, what she’d risked, to help John and Harold. And while she could argue that it was different – it was – it would be a damn tough case to make.

She remembered what John had said to her in that hallway. _You’d do the same thing._

Carter pursed her lips and started over. “This is a terrible idea, Taylor. Your heart’s in the right place, I can’t argue that, but this is not the way to help her. Or you.” She nodded to herself. “We can talk about this. Work out some options … “

“It doesn’t matter,” Taylor said sharply. “It doesn’t matter,” he said again, and now his voice was full of pain. “I asked her after school and she said yes. But she came over just now …” He gestured to the box on the table. “She brought the ring back. She said no.”

“Oh.” The air wooshed out of Carter’s lungs, and a great deal of tension. She almost slumped, leaned instead and put her arms around her son. “Oh, baby.”

Taylor shook his head. “Don’t, Mom.”

Carter pulled back a little, kept her hand on his shoulder. “Taylor …”

“You don’t get it, Mom. When she said yes, I was … I would’ve … but when she came back and gave that ring back …” His voice rose. “When she said no … I was _glad_ , Mom. I was _glad_! And I feel like a total shitheel. But I … I just didn’t …”

He put his head down. “I didn’t want to, Mom. I would have, but I didn’t want to.”

“I know, baby.” She put her arms around him again. This time he didn’t pull away. Carter closed her eyes and rocked him lightly. She didn’t know what to say. She didn’t even know what to feel. But she held her son close and willed him to know that she loved him, no matter what.

After a moment, Taylor pulled away again and wiped at his eyes with his fists. “Anyhow,” he said, trying to make his voice calm and firm, “anyhow, it’s all done with now, so … that’s it.”

“How can I help?” Joss asked.

He shook his head. “There’s nothing to do, Mom. It’s just … done. I just wanna … I don’t know. I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t even want to think about it. I’m just gonna go … shoot things.”

She patted his shoulder. “If I didn’t know what you meant, I’d be worried about that.”

He tried to smile. Then he got up, went to his room, and closed the door. Most of the way.

Carter leaned back and closed her eyes. She could still feel her pulse racing. She was proud of him, and she was scared to death at the risk he’d taken. Not that she would have let him marry the girl, anyhow, but … he was dangerously close to turning eighteen. She wanted to think he was still a kid, but the truth was that he was an adult. A very young adult, but an adult. Already he was old enough to be tried as an adult …

She sat up quickly. She’d always promised herself that she wasn’t going to be one of those parents, the kind that never let their kids grow up. But she wasn’t quite ready to let him go yet. She sure wasn’t ready to watch him turn into a married man. And a father.

That thought brought her all the way to her feet.

She paced the living room. It was way too small. Her brain was in absolute turmoil. Taylor with a wife. A baby. A family. The whole idea was so ridiculous it made her head spin.

The air in the apartment was suddenly suffocating.

She went to Taylor’s door, knocked lightly, then pushed it open. He paused his video game – some violent first-person shooter thing that he knew she didn’t approve of. “I’m going to go for a walk,” she announced. “You want to come with me?”

He shook his head. “I just really need to … not think about it for a while.”

“I’ll be back in a while. Call my cell if you need me.”

“Okay.” He glanced at the frozen screen, then back at her. “Thanks, Mom.”

“We’ll be okay, Taylor. I love you.”

“You, too.”

She pulled the door closed – mostly – behind her, grabbed her coat and her service weapon, and walked out into the night.

She paused just outside her front door to pull her gloves on. Voices to her left made her turn her head. Joey Carmichael’s front door had opened; the light from inside spilled out onto the steps to the sidewalk. Two voices, a man and a woman. Talking too loud, maybe a little drunk. Laughing.

Almost unconsciously, Carter leaned back against her own door and watched.

They came out onto the porch and locked up in a clinch.

It wasn’t, Carter observed, a casual kiss, the kind you’d give a brother or a friend who’d just fixed your dishwasher. This was a full-on groping make-out session, right there on the stoop. It went on for the better part of two minutes.

When they finally broke, the man staggered down the steps and walked past Carter, down to the corner. He was drunk enough that she was glad he wasn’t driving. But the woman on the porch interested her more.

The woman on the porch of Joey Carmichael’s house was Joey Carmichael’s mother. The man she’d been making out with was definitely not Joey Carmichael’s father.

It was no wonder the boy had been so secretive. His father was in Afghanistan. His mother was playing house with someone else. And poor Joey was trying desperately to keep it a secret.

“Damn it,” Carter said out loud.

The neighbor’s door closed. Carter walked slowly down the steps to the street and looked around. No one else was out – not that the couple seemed to care much. Only the boy gave a damn about protecting his father.

“Damn it,” the detective said again.

She took a dozen steps toward the Carmichael house. Then she stopped. She shoved her hands in her pockets, not because they were cold inside her gloves, but because they were shaking with rage. It would not do a damn bit of good for her to confront the woman, especially when she was furious and the woman was drunk. Going down there was asking for nothing but trouble.

But she needed to do something. Between Taylor’s near-miss and this nonsense with the neighbors, she felt like she was going to scream. She didn’t want to go back to her own house; Taylor was miserable enough. He didn’t need her bouncing off the walls all night.

Maybe he’d let her play his video game. An hour or so of shooting imaginary perps might be just the thing to take the edge off.

But she wasn’t that kind of person. And violence, while it might make her feel better temporarily, wasn’t what she needed right now.

What she needed, she decided, was a friend to talk to.

And possible a drink or two of her own.

She knew somebody who owed her both the talk and the drinks.

Carter took in a long, deep breath of the cold night air. Then she reached for her phone.

                                                                      


	17. Chapter 17

“You really don’t like hospitals, do you?” Christine asked gently.

Harold gazed at her steadily. She looked a world better than she had when the sun came up that morning. “I do not, no.”

There was a rattle in the hallway, a cart passing, and he turned his whole body to look that way.

Christine slipped her hand into his. “You don’t have to stay, Random. I’m okay.”

Harold shook his head. His dislike of hospitals notwithstanding, it was better that he was here. To be with her, certainly, but also because being here kept him from doing other things, things he knew he should not do.

Like remotely monitor Grace Hendricks on her first real date since his ‘death’.

“This could wait until I go home,” she continued.

“I think I want you to stay here for a while.” Harold reached into his bag and brought out the CDs he’d picked up from her apartment. They were all in thin clear cases, all labeled with indelible marker in Nathan’s distinct, scrawling hand. “They’re just copies of his music.”

Christine opened one case and slipped the CD into her laptop. Of course she’d insisted that Harold bring her the laptop, ahead of clean clothes or a toothbrush or anything else. The disc menu came up on the screen. She let him study it for a moment. “You don’t see it, do you?”

“Popular music was never my thing.”

“These two songs,” she said, pointing, “are out of order. From the way they are on the original CD.”

“If he copied disc to disc … “

“Uh-huh.” Christine nodded. “And this one’s sound quality is compromised.”

“Nathan hid something under it.”

“Yes.” She worked the keyboard swiftly, stripped out the encrypted file. “It’s just text of some kind.”  

Harold studied it. It was definitely Nathan’s own code. Complex enough, but it shouldn’t have slowed Christine down for long. She was better than Nathan had ever been. “What is it?”

“I don’t know.”

“You haven’t decrypted it?”

“I wasn’t sure I should,” she replied simply.

He looked up at her, startled. He was certain that she knew this was her idol’s code, Nathan’s hidden message. And he had given her carte blanche to look into anything she found. But Christine had not pursued this.

Just as she had not pursued any of her million questions about the Machine, even when she knew Harold had created it.

Her curiosity must be killing her.

But she had not looked at the files. Not even when he had arguably given his tacit permission. Not even to learn about her beloved idealized Nathan …

She had waited. And if he forbid her now, she would abide.

She had not, and would not, betray his trust.

“Oh, my sweet Deirdre,” he said softly.

“You know what is it, don’t you?”

“I don’t have any idea.” Harold sat back, gestured to the room. “You’ll be here a few more days. Why don’t you see if you can tease it out?”

Christine studied him for a long moment. The feeling that her bright blue eyes were looking right through him was familiar now. It still filled him with delight and anxiety in equal measure. She was damn hard to keep secrets from. And worse, he was increasingly willing to confide in her.

It was easier, suddenly, not to be watching Grace’s date. Even if it went very well, which he devoutly hoped it would, even if she married Gregg Everett and moved far away from the city, he would not be left alone.

Even if he lost John …

“Are you sure?” she asked evenly.

“I’m sure. Although …it may prove to be more unsavory than you might be comfortable with.”

“Notes on the Nathanettes?” she suggested with an impish smile.

Harold groaned. It was bad enough that his friend had been a serial philanderer. That he’d had so many young lovers that they’d gained a group designation in the uncivilized corners of the internet was mortifying. “Possibly,” he allowed.

It was more mortifying – horrifying, actually – to contemplate how easily Christine might have become one of their number, if Nathan had survived. She fell solidly into his demographic of choice – pretty, smart, young – and her work as a systems security auditor would inevitably have brought her to his attention.  

Nathan couldn’t have resisted her hero-worshipping infatuation even if he’d tried. Which he almost certainly would not have. An affair would have been practically guaranteed.

And possibly a great deal more than an affair, he realized. Once Nathan got close enough to realize that she was not just smart, but brilliant – and once he realized that she was physically available but emotionally elusive – he would have pursued her to the ends of the earth.

There but for the grace of the gods sat the second Mrs. Ingram. Not Will’s surrogate sister, but his widowed step-mother.

No, Harold amended. His _ex-_ step-mother.

It could not have lasted. The age difference between them would have been the least of their problems. It wouldn’t have taken Christine long to discover that ‘full of confidence’ translated to ‘full of himself’, for Nathan’s swagger to take its toll.

It would have taken even less time for the child of an abusive alcoholic to drop the hammer on Nathan’s habitual drinking.

The best that could have been said about that relationship was that it would have been _intense_.

_I know he’s what you wanted,_ Harold thought gently, _but trust me, he wasn’t what you needed._

He had much better plans for her.

If whatever Nathan had hidden in his music was going to reveal his feet of clay, the disappointment might actually do the young woman good. “It’s fine. Go ahead. Unless you don’t want to.”

Christine smiled. “I’ll let you know what I find. Can you have somebody bring me the rest of them?”

Harold shook his head. “No. If I do that, you won’t sleep. Work on these, and then I’ll bring you a _few_ more.”

Christine started to argue, then stopped. “As you wish.”

“An excellent decision.” 

                                                           x  x  x  x  x 

The bartender put a glass of beer in front of her, and another in front of Reese. In the time it had taken her to walk to the bar, Carter had talked herself out of hard liquor. She knew she could rely on John to get her home safely, but Taylor didn’t need to deal with any more tonight. Memories of Joey Carmichael’s mother, drunk on her front stoop, kept running through her head.

“What are you going to do?” John asked.

“I don’t know,” Carter admitted. “I wish I hadn’t seen them at all.” She shook her head. “I knew the kid was lying. I just didn’t know what about.”

“You’ve always had good instincts.”

“Sometimes I wish I didn’t.”

“This whole internet thing,” he mused. “She doesn’t want the kid talking to his dad because she’s afraid he’ll spill the beans.”

“That’s how I figure it. I don’t know what to do, John. I don’t know how to help this kid.”

Reese drank slowly, thoughtfully. Finally he said, “Do you know him? The father?”

“To wave to on the street,” Carter shrugged. “I might have met him once or twice before he deployed.”

“I think you should get on Skype with him.”

“And tell him about his wife?” Carter asked, surprised.

John shook his head. “Chances are good he already knows. Or that he knows something’s up, anyhow. Soldiers. You know how they are.”

She did. Deployed soldiers had an instinct for this. It wasn’t anything concrete, not a word or a phrase in a letter, not at first. But every grunt she’d ever spoken to who’d just gotten a Dear John letter said the same thing: _I knew this was going to happen. I knew she was going to leave me_.

“Whether he knows about the affair or not,” Reese went on, “he knows something’s bothering his son. He’s half-way around the world and he can’t do anything for him. About the only thing _you_ can do is let the father get to know you better. Let him know that there’s a safe reasonable adult available to help the boy. Give him a face and a name and a voice.” He shrugged. “Take away a little of the helplessness.”

Carter sipped her own beer. “That’s not much.”

“No.”

“But it’s something,” she said.

“Yes.”

“I hate this shit.”

“I know.” He studied her a moment. “What else is bothering you?”

She pressed her lips together. “Nothing.”

“Joss.”

Carter chuckled dryly. “I can’t tell you. And it doesn’t matter. The situation’s … resolved.”

“Taylor?”

“Is it that obvious?”

“He’s the only one who makes you make that face.”

She looked over at him. Even in the low light of the bar, his sea-blue eyes sparkled, warm and serious.

“Can I help?” he asked. “Maybe have a talk with him? Badass to boy?”

Carter chuckled. She could feel the tension in her chest unwinding under his gentle teasing. “More like man-to-man, I’m afraid. That’s the problem. He’s not a little boy any more. He’s a grown-ass man. And he’s making grown-ass choices.”

“Not good choices, I take it?”

“His heart’s in the right place,” she allowed. “His head, not so much.” She stopped. “I can’t talk about it. It’s Taylor’s thing. His business.”

John nodded his understanding.

“But he caught me off guard with this,” Carter went on. “I always figured we’d talk about things, work them out together. And this was big. Really big. And he just went off and made his own decisions.”

“Your son’s an independent thinker?” John teased again, gently. “How could that have happened?”

“Thanks a lot.” She shook her head. “The worst of it is, I can’t decide whether to bust with pride or just choke the life out of him.”

“Ahhh,” Reese nodded. “Wrong choice, right reasons.”

“Exactly.”

“That’s going to happen, you know.”

“That’s the scary part. This time it turned out okay. What he tried to do, nothing came of it. But next time …” She shook her head. “He might not be so lucky.” She sipped her beer, gestured with her glass. “We could end up doing a lot of this before he gets through college.”

Reese shrugged. “Okay by me.”

She shifted around to look at him. “So how’s your girl?”

“Christine?” He made a little face of his own and repeated her words. “This time it turned out okay. But next time she might not be so lucky.”

“She’s not going to stop, you know.”

“I know.”

They sat for a while in silence, comfortable. 

“Finding that baby’s body,” Carter said. “Fifty years. That’s something.”

“That was a strange one,” John agreed.

“You’re still not going to tell me where you get your information, are you?”

“Sorry, Joss.”

“Not even for this one case? This fifty year-old case? C’mon. How in the world did you guys locate the body of a newborn infant that was buried in a burned-down house after all these years?”

Reese shook his head. “Can’t tell you.”

She smirked. “Well, you’re gonna have to give me something to write up in my repot.”

“Tell the truth,” John suggested. “Daniel Geis came forward after all these years and confessed.”

“Confessed. Someone beat that confession out of him, from the looks of it.”

“No,” John promised. “He confessed first. Then she beat him.”

“And you couldn’t stop her, huh?”

He shrugged. “I was busy.”

Carter sipped her beer. “Well, you can’t blame a girl for asking.”

“Nope.”

“And I’m going to go right on asking. You know that, right?”

“I wouldn’t expect anything else, Joss.”

They were quiet again. Finally, Carter said, “Thanks, John. For coming out tonight. I needed this.”

He nodded and smiled. It was small and genuine. “I think I did, too.”

                                                           x  x  x  x  x 

Christine Fitzgerald rolled in her sleep, tried to pull her knees to her chest, and woke herself up. She stayed very still for a moment, sorting out where she was and why. Then she straightened and untangled her various monitor leads.

Her shoulder hurt when she moved. Her rib hurt. Her whole damn body hurt.

She finally got settled and then rested until the pain subsided. She closed her eyes, but sleep grew further away instead of closer.

Ice rain splattered against the windows.

It was three in the morning. She’d been out of surgery for nearly twenty-four hours. The civilized world was asleep. The hackers were just rising to feed.

She didn’t bother with the lights. She raised the head of her bed, pulled the rolling table over to her, and fired up her laptop. There would be chats somewhere. Australia would be online; West Coast would be in full swing. She should look for pop-ups of Will and Julie. And ruin Maxine Angelis’ credit rating, cancel her health insurance, and invalidate her driver’s license.

Instead, Christine opened the menu of the music CD that still rested in the laptop.

Nathan Ingram’s encryption was better than most, and not nearly as good as hers. Or Random’s. It took her less than an hour, one-handed, to find the key. The text document opened for her. It was four pages long, just over a thousand words.

_11/1/2000_

_Rolled out H’s improvement on the anti-lock brakes today. He told me it was nothing. Minor improvement. Ha! Chrysler engineers went crazy over it. Practically kissed my ring. Would have kissed my ass if I told them to.  H’s minor improvement has fired another bidding war. We are going to be richer than ever. Also saving lives._

_11/5/2000_

_Stopped by the office after last call to get my coat. H still here working. Hadn’t eaten since yesterday. I swear I’ll walk in here one day and find him dead of starvation at his keyboard. I can’t get him to stop. Invited him to come out with me but he said he was too busy. Watching H work is like watching a fireworks show – one brilliant idea after another. He has a million ideas in his head.  Sometimes he lets me help, but usually I’m too slow. Patience is not H’s strong point. Told him again I feel like a fraud, taking all the credit. He gave me that look again. H never says I should just shut up and take the money and the praise in so many words, but I see it. It’s worth half the money and all the fame to him just to be left alone._

_11/15/2000_

_Last BoD meeting before the holidays. Usual bitching about not being kept up on new developments. If they only knew how often I’m not kept up on new developments. It was all I could do not to scream at them to cash their damn dividend checks and shut up. Of course it reminds me how H must feel about me. Just shut up and take the money. _

_I wonder if H foresaw days like this way back at MIT. If that’s why he picked me in the first place. Nathan Ingram, tall, blond, and least likely to scream obscenities at the board of directors. That’s me, shaking hands and smiling and not choking the shit out of anybody, while H gets to sit in his cubicle and spin his brilliant ideas. Sometimes I think he got the better half of this partnership. I still remember when we first met, when he was just an annoying little grad ass trying to get me through my intro class alive. I thought he was being friendly. Turns out he was trying to impress the little red-head in the row behind me …._

 

Christine stopped reading. She glanced swiftly over the rest of the document. All four pages contained short journal entries. She minimized the file. Then, very quickly, she disconnected the WiFi connection from the laptop.

_Shit_ , she thought. And then, _shit shit shit_.

She knew this about Harold, first and last, above all else: He kept secrets. Many, many secrets. Some he kept to protect his life, or the lives of those around him. Some he kept for reasons she could not begin to guess. But he kept them, and he guarded them fiercely. The whole basis of their friendship seemed to be that she didn’t pry, that she let him keep his precious secrets. Since the night he’d walked into Chaos, she had not asked questions if she could possibly avoid it. The biggest secret, that he was the father of the all-seeing Machine, she’d worked out on her own. She hadn’t asked for details and he’d never volunteered them. The other things, the thousand things she knew he kept to himself in any given day – she didn’t ask. And because she didn’t ask and she didn’t complain, sometimes, rarely, he volunteered to share one of them with her.

Now, suddenly, all those secrets were there at her fingertips.

She reached out and closed the lid of the computer.

_So what the hell is the game, Random? Do you know what it is, or do you truly not know? Is it some kind of trap? A test of loyalty? And how do I win? Do I read it and keep the secrets I find there? Do I throw the discs in the street and run over them with a car? Burn them with thermite? Do I tell you what I found, or just keep my mouth shut? Tell you the truth, or lie about it?_

_What do you want me to do, Random?_

She did not harbor any illusions about Harold. She knew he could be kind, generous and loving, the most giving man in the world. She also knew he could be as hard and cold and ruthless as anyone she’d ever met. She did not, _could not_ , forget the man he’d been that night in the pizza shop, when the wordless fury came off him in waves, engulfing the screaming green-haired junkie who’d managed to crack Harold’s almost-perfect security. Until that night she’d only know anger that was shouting and hitting. She’d never met anyone who was silent in rage. She’d been terrified. 

Then Nathan had arrived, tall and blond and calm, her gallant White Knight. And oh, God, she remembered the shame. And she remembered that Harold had kept _her_ secret. He hadn’t told Nathan that the little junkie who’d hacked them was the same little genius he’d been so kind to years before.

That was probably in there, too, somewhere. There were hundreds of discs in the boxes. Possibly hundreds and hundreds of pages hidden on them. The rise and fall of IFT as seen through the eyes of its founder. The junior internship program probably in there somewhere, even if she wasn’t named individually. The night at the pizza shop? That had certainly been journal-worthy. She could find out what exactly what Nathan Ingram had thought about her, what Harold had said about her afterward … 

Tears filled her eyes. She didn’t want to know. But it was there, somewhere. How could she not look? How could she not read every word Nathan had written about her?

And Harold. It was Nathan’s story, but Harold had been a huge part of it. She knew he would be in almost every entry. All their history together. In bits and drops, in casual easy phrases, was probably everything Ingram knew about his partner. _Everything Nathan knew._ If she had all the discs, she could put together the whole story.

All the secrets the men had shared.

It was a wildly exciting idea. And it was terrifying.

_He said I could read it._

_But I don’t know if he knew what it was._

_I don’t know what you want me to do, Random._

_And what happens if I get it wrong?_

The monitor beside her bed began to beep softly. Startled, she looked up at it. Her heart rate had turned a portion of the screen red.  She made herself take a deep breath. Which was a mistake, of course; her rib hurt like hell. But the pain was grounding. _Calm the hell down or they’re going to sedate you. Breathe light. Even._

She focused on the monitor, on her breathing, until the monitor turned blue again.

A nurse came in. She seemed surprised to find Christine awake and sitting up in the dark. “Everything alright?” she asked. She turned on a small light near the door. “Your vitals are a little erratic.” She moved to the bedside, checked on the IV, read the print-outs. “How’s your pain?”

“It’s okay.” Christine shifted again. “I had a bad dream.”

The nurse nodded. Her presence was calming, distracting. “I’m not surprised. Do you want something to help you sleep?”

“No, thanks. I’ve been sleeping all day.”

“Maybe a snack? Some juice?”

“No, I’m fine.”

The nurse looked at the monitor again and nodded to herself. She moved the multi-function controller very close to Christine’s hand. “If you change your mind, just ring.”

“I will. Thanks.”

The nurse went out, turning the light out as she left. Christine shifted again. She couldn’t find a comfortable position. But it was better now. She could move her finger and summon help, or at least company. Hell, she could shout and they’d come running.

She looked at the laptop again. The interruption had cleared her head enough to let her think about _why_ she was afraid. Because she’d find out what Nathan had thought about her? She’d disappointed a lot of people. And he wasn’t nearly the White Knight she’d wanted him to be, anyhow. Afraid that Harold would be angry at her? Yes, definitely. But he’d never be as angry as he’d been that first night. He would not tear her away from her home – such as it was – and force her into a kind, soft-spoken prison. He would not have her locked up, restrained, sedated until she could not wake herself from her own nightmares …

Harold would not do that to her. He wouldn’t have to. He could hurt her that badly now just by turning his back.

It was that simple, really.

If she opened the Pandora’s box that Nathan had left behind, Random might leave her. Change the locks on the library, change his phone number – simply leave. She’d still be able to find him, of course. They had too many contacts in common for him to drop out of sight completely. But he could withdraw his friendship. Turn away from her. Cut her out of his life.   

_Well, so what? I’ve been left by better men than him._

That wasn’t true. She’d never known a better man than him.  

_I’ve been alone my whole life. This wouldn’t be any different._

But it would be.

It was startling to realize how long it had been since she’d felt really _alone_. Not since the night he’d walked into Chaos, distraught and distracted, absolutely focused on saving someone else’s life …

She’d always liked being alone before. She’d gone to great lengths to be sure she could be alone. But at this moment she couldn’t stand it.

She’d gotten used to having Harold in her life. The thought of losing him now …

_What am I supposed to do, Random?_ Tears filled her eyes and she blinked them back. _Just tell me what I’m supposed to do._

She brought her hand up and rubbed the joints in her jaw. They hurt. She was grinding her teeth, she realized. The old signal that the heroin addict she had been needed to fix.

Christine picked up her cell phone. She hated herself, hated the weakness it represented. But she was scared and cold and so so alone …

She dropped her hand to the call button that would bring the nurse back.

_… and it would be so fucking easy to get narcotics right now …_

Her finger glided over the button. Then she lifted her hand off and dialed the phone instead.

He answered before the first ring ended. “What’s wrong, Christine?”

She took a deep breath. It was three in the damn morning, and John’s voice was deeper than usual, heavy with sleep, but he was all comfort, no annoyance. The minute she heard his voice, the fear began to fade.

“Nothing,” she managed to say. “I’m sorry I woke you.”

“I don’t mind. At all.” His voice shifted; he’d probably sat up in bed. “I’m right here. Tell me what you need.”

_I need for you to come and get this laptop and these discs and smash them all,_ she thought wildly. _I need you to take this decision away from me so I don’t have to make it …_

And he would. She knew he would. All she had to do was ask. Just say …

And then it hit her. They were the same words she’d said to Marisa Finley. _This is not your choice. You are not responsible for the outcome.I am taking this decision away from you._

But she wasn’t ten years old. And she was frightened, but she wasn’t helpless. 

She could breathe now, with his voice in her ear. “I think I just scared myself a little.”

“I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

“No,” she said quickly. “No, John, really, I’m okay.”

He sighed patiently. “A man tried to kill you. He nearly succeeded. You’re allowed to be frightened. Or angry. Or whatever else you want to be. And you’re allowed to ask for help. I’m on my way.”

“I _am_ asking for help, John. But I don’t need you to haul your ass down here in the middle of the night in the rain. I just … I need to … not be alone in the dark for a while.”

His breath hitched. She wasn’t sure why.

“Can you just … can you talk to me for a few minutes?” she continued.

She heard him exhale, probably settle back onto his bed. “You sure?”

“I’m sure. It’s bad enough I woke you up at this hour.”

“You can always wake me, kitten. I’ll always be here.”

“Thank you.” She laid still for a moment, breathing his presence, his silence. _Not alone._ “Tell a story.”

He chuckled in surprise. “What kind of story?”

“Tell me about when John met Harold.”

“Oh, _that_ story.”

“Or any story, it doesn’t matter.”

“It doesn’t start pretty, the John and Harold story,” he said willingly. “I was drunk, and I had long hair and a nasty beard and lice and fleas, and I probably had scurvy … “

“You did not have scurvy.”

“I might have. Hard to tell. Anyhow, I got in a fight with this group of punks on the subway. It wasn’t my fault, the other guy started it …”

Christine put the phone on speaker and set it on the table next to the computer. She opened the laptop. While John talked – telling her a very different version of a story she’d already heard from Harold – she partitioned a space on her hard drive and constructed a big strong firewall around it. Then she dropped the fragment of Nathan’s journal into the secured space.

_He said I could read it_ , she told herself. She recognized the petulant defiance in her thoughts, but went on anyhow. _I gave him a chance to tell me no and he didn’t. Better me than Will, he said. So fine. I’ll keep his secrets. But I get to know what they are._

_And what did he say? They might be unsavory. Maybe he knew._

_He had to know. How could he not know?_

_And if he wants to be pissed off about it …_

_…well, fuck it. I’ll beg for forgiveness later._

_He won’t leave me._

_Even if I know all his secrets._

_He won’t leave me._

John Reese’s voice in her ear kept the worst monsters in her imagination at a safe distance.

_I believe, I trust, that he won’t leave me. _

She loaded a second music disc and teased out the next part of the story.

 

The End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More about the real-life stolen child: http://gma.yahoo.com/stolen-birth-paul-fronczak-211825366--abc-news-topstories.html?vp=1
> 
> More about Vollis Simpson: http://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images?_adv_prop=image&fr=ytff1-msgr&va=vollis+simpson
> 
> To hear the song of the subway flash mob: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlRvE9dKWQc


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